Bannock is a simple baking-powder bread that’s popular in wilderness living. I learned this cooking method from the Canadian survival expert Mors Kochanski. This basic recipe makes one serving.
(1 min. 10 sec. video shot by me on 31 Oct 2025 in Lelystad, the Netherlands).
Ingredients
- 1 cup self-rising flour
- ½ cup water (approx.)
(Alternatively, use regular flour and add 1 heaping teaspoon baking powder and ⅛ teaspoon salt.)
Method
- Find a green, wrist-thick pole — in the video I use willow.
- Peel the bark from the section where the dough will go and warm the pole near the campfire, rotating it so it heats evenly. The hot wood helps the dough stick and cooks it gently from the inside.
- Put the flour on a plate or in a bowl and add a little water. Stir and knead, adding small amounts of water until you can form a soft ball of dough. (Be careful not to add too much water!)
- Wrap the dough around the hot section of the pole, about 1 cm thick. Kochanski recommends shaping it as a tube rather than a spiral — it adheres better.
- Bake close to the coals at first, rotating constantly until the dough firms up (otherwise it might rise and fall off). Then move it farther from the heat and keep turning as it slowly browns.
- Total cooking time: about 30 minutes. If cooked too fast, it’ll burn on the outside and stay raw inside.
Bon appétit!