I stumbled upon this recipe for bannock from a blog (culinary-cool.com) and after realizing how easy this traditional First Nations bread is to make, I decided I needed to give it a go. The only time I have had bannock that I can remember, was at a powwow when I was quite young, and it was in the form of a ‘bannock burger’ and let me tell you, I do remember that it was absolutely delicious.
Something I liked about this blog (aside from it being that of a fellow Canadian), was that the writing was pretty much to the point and you went almost straight into the recipe. I’ll definitely be checking out more recipes from this blog again.
Now, to review..
Using only five ingredients, bannock is quite a simple bread to make. If you follow the directions, you’ll be just fine! I was worried I was going to over-knead the dough, since the directions advise you not to, but from what I could tell, I did okay in that aspect.
I was also a little weary of mixing warm melted butter and cold water, so I used lukewarm water from the tap. I just know that with other baking, generally you should have the ingredients at room (or the same) temperature. You shouldn’t use warm, melted butter and cold cream to make buttercream icing, for example.
I also like that you do not need to let the dough rest. You form it into a ball (mine was quite sticky, and I’m not sure if that is how it was supposed to be but I made it work) and go straight into the baking process, for which there are three options..
Option one: Roll the dough out onto a baking sheet. This is the option I wish I had done. My dough was definitely too sticky to roll out, but I would have added a bit more flour if it was my plan to bake it in the oven. I did, however, bake a smaller piece of dough and thoroughly enjoyed it. Without trying to offend, oven the baked bannock was sort of a mix between a scone and a biscuit.
Option two: This is how I cooked most of the dough. I took approximately 1/4 cup of dough, pulled it so it was flat and round and dropped it into a shallow pool of hot oil. Well, I definitely should have used smaller portions of dough, for one. And for two, the bannock really soaked up the oil. So obviously it was delicious, but also kind of made my heart feel heavy and slow. Maybe that was my own fault by using this process incorrectly? Again, without trying to offend, this version tasted a little bit more like a donut.
Option three: I don’t have a deep fryer and I didn’t fill up a pan, so I didn’t even try to deep fry the bannock. I know I wouldn’t have had any issue eating the bread baked in this way though.
So final thoughts are to bake instead of fry and to eat it just about any way you would eat bread or buns! As toast with PB and J. Sprinkled with some cinnamon and brown sugar. As a burger bun. For a sandwich. The possibilities are endless! Enjoy!
