Camp Skillet Flatbread
Whole wheat dough mixed at home, soaked in the bag on the drive, cooked flat in a pan at camp.
- calories
- 320
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 91
- protein
- 9 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 30 min
- water
- 300 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Lunch
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Campfire coals
- Grill grate
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Whole wheat flour | 3 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Unbleached white flour | 1 cup | keeps the crumb from going brick-dense |
| Buttermilk powder | 1/2 cup | stands in for the whey or fresh buttermilk in the soak |
| Active dry yeast | 1 tsp | |
| Honey | 2 tbsp | a squeeze tube, not a jar |
| Salt | 2 tsp | |
| Baking soda | 1/2 tsp | |
| Ghee or butter powder | 3 tbsp | ghee keeps for weeks unrefrigerated |
| Warm water | 1 1/4 cups |
Method
- At home, bag the whole wheat flour, white flour, and buttermilk powder together. Bag the yeast, salt, and baking soda separately, or they will kill each other in the pack.
- In camp, pour about 300 ml of water into the flour bag. It should be warm, not boiling: heat it and let it sit a minute off the stove. Add the honey and 2 tbsp of the ghee.
- Seal the bag and work it from outside until there is no dry flour left. Leave it in the sun or inside your jacket for two hours. Overnight is better.
- Add the yeast, salt, and baking soda to the bag and knead it in for a minute. The dough will be slack and sticky. That is right.
- Pull off six lumps and flatten each one to about a quarter inch with your palms on a clean bag.
- Wipe the pan with the last of the ghee and set it over low heat. Cook each round three to four minutes a side, until it puffs and takes brown spots. Low heat matters. High heat burns the outside while the middle stays raw.
The original is a loaf, and a loaf needs an oven and a two-hour rise you cannot babysit at a campsite. The dough survives the translation better than the shape does, so this cooks flat in a skillet instead. The long soak is the part worth keeping: whole wheat flour sitting in an acidic liquid softens the bran and makes the finished bread less dense and easier to digest. That soak happens in a freezer bag on the drive in, which costs you nothing.
Fresh buttermilk is not an option without a fridge, so buttermilk powder rehydrates in the soak and does the same acid work. Ghee replaces butter because it is already clarified and keeps unrefrigerated. The yeast, salt, and soda go in after the soak, not before: acid and a long wet rest will spend the leavening before it ever sees heat.
Packing
Two bags: dry flours plus buttermilk powder in a heavy gallon freezer bag with room to knead, and the yeast, salt, and soda in a snack bag tucked inside it. Ghee in a screw-top jar. Honey in a squeeze tube.
Variations
- Skip the yeast entirely and add another 1/2 tsp of baking soda for a faster, flatter bread.
- Press dried garlic and rosemary into the rounds before they hit the pan.
- Cook on a grill grate over coals instead of a pan. Watch it closer; there is no thermal buffer.
https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/easy-delicious-soaked-whole-wheat-bread