Baking Bread in the Backcountry

I love backpacking in nature; the joy of camping, the fresh air, the wildlife, and tranquility of it all. But because you are carrying everything on your back, you have pack as light and compact as possible. There isn’t a sink or a counter top or an oven. You must carry out all the garbage you bring in. Plus, without a refrigerator you cannot take food that is perishable. Despite these challenges, I still like to eat well when I am camping, so, when I plan a trip, I spend a lot of time planning my menu. I make my own dried food meals at home and experiment with different recipes. In this Instructable I describe how I modified a basic recipe to make my own yeast bread on a backcountry backpacking trip. I took some pictures on the trip, but took at home some more at home, and some video to make these instructions a little clearer.

This bread is super fun to make. It is even a great activity to do with kids on a camping trip. They get to take part in preparing the food by doing things they find fun, like getting messy, kneading the dough, seeing how much it rises, punching it down, watching it cook on the campfire and of course eating fresh warm bread!

So, with that said, let’s get started.

Here are the ingredients and things I used to make the bread. It makes 6 to 8 buns.

Ingredients

1¾ cups All purpose flour

1 tsp Dried Yeast

2 tbsp Powered milk (enough to make ½ cup of milk)

¾ tsp Salt

Other things:

1 Medium Ziploc bag

1 Medium freezer bag (durable plastic bag with no holes!)

1 Plastic container with lid (e.g. 32oz/1L takeout container)

6 - 8 Paper muffin cups (or 15x15cm aluminum foil squares)

Cling wrap

Metal camping pot

Large aluminum foil cookie sheet pan (for making the Faux Baker at home before your trip – see below)

Scissors & Philips screwdriver (for making the Faux Baker)

First you will need to make the “Faux Baker”. Mine I made a decade ago, and have used it many times. It is called a Faux Baker because we won’t actually be baking, we will steam the dough. To do this, we need a way to hold the dough above the level of the water in the pot; that’s where the Faux Baker comes in. You make the baker out of an aluminum foil cookie sheet, which you can buy at the dollar store (not aluminum foil you would use to wrap leftovers). On the foil trace out the circumference of your pot that you plan to use when camping. Then with the scissors cut out the circle but, with an extra 0.5 cm of aluminium around the edge. You will also need to cut a 3cm wide strip out of the remaining foil, trying to get a piece about 35 cm long.

On the aluminum circle, work your way around the whole circumference, folding the edge over to make the circle just small enough to fit inside your pot. The folds will hide any sharp edge, and also reinforce the circle. Then with the Philips screwdriver, puncture holes in the aluminum at regular intervals to perforate the surface. The idea is that these holes will allow steam to pass through later when cooking. Flatten the underside of all of the aluminum to make sure there are not any sharp edges exposed.

For the aluminum strip, fold both sides over so that the strip is about 2.5 cm wide. It is ok if it is not completely precise. Later, when you are cooking, this strip will be a loose coil in the bottom of the pan to raise the aluminum circle above the level of water.

That’s it, you have made the Faux Baker. I don’t have pictures of me making it, but I think it will be self explanatory from the pictures. When I pack it, the circle fits flat in the bottom of the pot, and the strip can be rolled up (or even folded) to take up less space.

On the trip it is helpful to have some way to measuring water. One way is to mark the outside of the plastic container at ¼ cup and at ½ cup with a marker or scratching it so it is easily visible even in low light. This way the container can double as your measuring cup when in camp.

The last thing to do at home for this recipe is getting the ingredients together. Measure the four and salt, and place them together in the Ziploc bag. Then measure out both the yeast and powdered milk and place each a separate piece of cling wrap which you can seal and place these within the bag with the flour. Make sure the cling wrap pieces are large enough that they won’t accidentally leak when your food gets jostled around. The entire Ziplock with all the ingredients should only weigh about 300gm for the 6 buns. I usually write out all my instructions on a scrap piece of paper and put that in too. That way in camp I know what is in the bag, how to make it, and then I can burn the paper in the camp fire when I am done.

Baking bread with yeast takes time, so you will need plan around this. The actual work time is about an hour total, but the total time for the yeast to grow can add up to 2-3 hours, or more if you want. You can do other things while the yeast is doing its thing, you just have to plan around it.

To start the dough, you will need to activate the yeast. Place ¼ cup of flour with the yeast in your empty plastic bag, and add approximately ¼ cup of warm water. Gently massage the outside of the bag for a few minutes to mix everything together. Try to keep the mixture at the bottom of the bag so it does not get too messy. Close the bag with a loose knot and place it in the plastic container and place the lid so no bugs get in. Put the container in a warm place (like sunlight) and let the yeast ferment 30-60 minutes. This helps give it flavour that you don’t get with bread made with baking powder. Another alternative to keeping it warm that I did was to hold the container close to the fire, but checking it *constantly* to make sure it didn’t get too warm. The yeast mixture will look murky with some bubbles when done.

Next, add ½ cup of warm water and the milk powder to your yeast mixture. Add about ½ cup of flour and massage the outside of the bag to mix it into the yeast mixture before adding more flour. Make sure you massage right down into the corners to be sure all the flour is mixed in. Repeat adding about ½ cup of flour at a time and massaging the bag each time until all the flour has been added. Let the dough rest 5 minutes.

Now that all the ingredients are mixed together, you must knead the dough. This step is very important for getting the bread to rise so take your time. Normally this is done on a clean, floured surface, but in camp we don’t have this, so we must improvise. Make sure your hands are clean because you are about to get messy! Place your non-dominant hand on the bottom of the bag so it can hold the bag and some of the dough while you knead. Then with your dominant hand turn the bag inside out, and start kneading. Doing it this way, you will always have one clean hand, which comes in handy when you are trying to cook in the woods.

To knead the dough stretch it between your hands then fold it back on itself. It is tricky to do at first because the dough is sticky, but as you knead it clearer sticks more to itself and less to the bag. (If this is new to you, have a look at the video that demonstrates some of the steps of this Instructable.) Continue kneading by stretching the dough from different directions and folding it back on itself each time. This process causes the strands of gluten molecules within the dough to get stretched out crisscrossing each other. This lattice-like configuration helps to trap the bubbles the yeast. These bubbles are what makes the dough expand later when you leave it to rise. This is why yeast bread needs to be kneaded, and bread with baking powder does not. Kneading should take about 10 minutes, and the dough should feel firm, smooth and elastic.

Flip the bag back right-side-out, and scrape off as much of the dough off your hands as you can, adding it back into the bag. Place the bag back into the container, covering it with the lid. And again, place it in a warm place for 1 to 1.5 hours, allowing the dough to double in size. I don’t think the dough will pop the lid off, but that is a possibility so check on it periodically. If pressure is building up, just leave the lid partially open to let the gas vent out.

Take the bag out of the container and punch down the dough, trying not to pop a hole in the bag. This will knock out a lot of the air bubbles. You can then massage the bag for a few minutes to get more of the bubbles out. Then place it back in the container with the lid and let the dough rest 5 minutes so it will be easier to work with.

Now you can take the bag out of the container and pull off portions of dough so that there are equal amounts for your paper muffin cups. Pick up one portion out of the paper and stretch the sides of the dough ball underneath and press them together. Repeat this by pulling from different directions, pulling the sides down and pinching underneath. (If this doesn’t make sense, have a look at the video in the previous step.) By stretching like this it should form a round ball. Repeat for all the dough balls, replacing each in its muffin paper when formed. Then cover the buns and leave them for about 45 minutes for them to rise. When I did this, I put some in the container, some in the pot, wherever I could find space for them to expand, but covered so they wouldn’t dry out. They might double in size depending on the temperature and the kneading, so make sure they have space.

Place the aluminum strip of your Faux Baker in the bottom of the pot. The strip should be a loose coil so it will support the aluminum circle without it tipping. Put in enough water to fill the bottom but not so much that the level of the water is higher than the Faux Baker. Cover the pot. To boil the water, you can use a camp stove, but I think it is best on a fire. It will take some time to cook all of the buns if you can only fit a couple in the pot at a time like me. Whichever way you choose, once you get the heat going, place the pot to get the water boiling.

While the water is heating, take a knife and cut an “X” into the top of each bun. This will break the surface which will allow the bun to expand a little more while it is cooking. Once the water is boiling, place a couple of buns on the Faux Baker, cover the pot and simmer for 10 minutes. Avoid opening the lid as this would let out the heat. Before switching for uncooked buns, replenish the water at the bottom of the pot needed. Repeat the cooking until all the buns are cooked.

This bread is a great luxury when you are out on the trail. It is warm, moist, filling, and full of carbs which is important if you are doing a lot of mileage during the day. I would say the bread comes out a little chewy compared to oven baked bread; but that makes sense seeing as it is steamed and not baked. I had my bread with peperoni and cheese, and later with camp chili I made. If there are leftovers, let them to cool completely, then place in the container with the lid so the bread doesn’t dry out. If you put them in the container before they are cool, condensation will form which will make the outside soggy. If the weather is hot and/or humid, you may want to eat them within the next day just because there aren’t any preservatives in them.

There are a lot of options you can do with this recipe. On my next trip I will try toasting them afterwards by putting it on a stick over the coals of the fire, like roasting a marshmallow. That way it would have a nice brown colour, and get a crusty outside which I think I would enjoy even more. Other things you could try include adding other ingredients like dried meat, or nuts, or olives, etc. before kneading the dough.

The last thing I would like to say is how I would plan out the bread if it was a day where I was waking up in one campsite, hiking during the day, then camping in another site. I would do step 3 (Activating the yeast) in the morning while eating breakfast, then set it to ferment as I cleaned my camp and packed up my tent. (You may have to hang the container from a tree if there are curious critters about.) Then I would do step 4 (preparing the dough) and place the container with dough in my backpack before heading off to the trail. The dough would likely be in rising for more than the 1.5 hours, but that should be ok. The yeast would ferment more, but as the dough is in a sealed container it wouldn’t dry out. There is a chance the dough could expand and pop the lid off which would be a big mess, so I would check it periodically and squeeze out the air out of the dough if needed. Then when my new camp was set up, I would continue from step 5 by making the buns and finish cooking the bread. Fresh bread for camp dinner!