Bread made without an oven

A useful and delicious trick to keep up a cook’s sleeve is the skill to make fresh bread without an oven. It’s a very useful fall back when the oven breaks, as ours has done, when the electricity goes off for more than 24 hours, as ours has done, or when you’re having a campfire, as we’ve done. You make a dough similar to soda bread, then fry it on a hot griddle or in a cast iron frying pan without a lid.

First, the dough. Take one pound of flour (I use 50:50 wholemeal and plain flour) and mix it together with four teaspoons of baking powder and a pinch of salt. Rub in four ounces of butter at room temperature until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in just enough milk, milk and water, or water alone to bring the dough together. Quickly knead it into a ball, then roll it out to about an inch thick and just big enough to fit on the griddle or in the pan. While you’re kneading the dough, have the lightly greased griddle heating over a high heat. When it just starts to smoke, place the dough in the pan and leave for about five minutes.

Use a wide slice or a pair of spatulas to turn the bread. It should be a medium brown where it’s been in contact with the pan and the crust should be around an eighth of an inch thick (strong enough to hold the bread together). Cook over the high heat for a further five minutes and turn the bread again. The next step varies according to heat source. With gas and old-fashioned electric rings, turn the heat down to medium and cook for a further 10-15 minutes per side. On halogen hob, turn the heat down to medium but remove the pan for a couple of minutes while the temperature falls. On an open fire, lift the pan at least six inches higher.

It takes a lot of practice and knowledge of your cooker and pan to get the loaf right. The aim is to cook the bread through, get a reasonable rise and not blacken either side of the loaf. However, blackened crust is preferable to undercooked bread, as you can remove the crust if need be. I find it usually takes about 30 minutes in total to cook the loaf through. Turn the bread out on to a wire tray covered with a teatowel. This allows it to breathe and cool slightly, without going soft underneath. Break the loaf apart, smother with butter and enjoy. In our case, we had it with root vegetable soup, laced with pork stock for the boys and I. (And if you use a little less baking powder and pop the loaf in a dutch oven or casserole with a lid and cook it in the ashes of a fire, then you have a damper. If you break it into small balls, flatten them and fry/bake them you have soda biscuits or soda scones.)