How to Make Homemade Bread Over an Open Campfire

For many Canadians going camping during the summer months is a national past time. When I had young children I could hardly wait until that last day of school before summer holidays. A week prior we would start getting all the camping gear together. We'd check all the equipment to make sure everything was still operational and the kids would start getting excited. Another summer spent in the wilds of northern Ontario.

We would spend the whole summer out there. It was one thing as a single mother that I could afford for my children. Every now and then we would go to Mississaugi Provincial Park but most times we just camped out on Crown Land. The kids spent their days riding their bikes through the trails, swimming, and using their imaginations. We had two rules at camp; everything had to be cooked over the open fire, unless it was raining and every meal had to have something from the wild; fish, berries, nuts, etc. We came up with some pretty ingenious ideas for meals and ate very well.

When living outside a mother has some of the same problems to face that they would at home. What do we make for supper? Most of our meals were cooked over an open fire but some items were always a bit trickier to accomplish. My children grew up on homemade bread but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to bring that taste to the campsite with us. I didn't figure this one out until my children were grown and had families of their own. This past summer at our annual camping trip I passed the recipe for camp bread along to my family and now it will remain a staple of our camp.

Camp bread is not the flat bread that you often see being cooked in a large frying pan over an open fire. If you want a recipe for Bannock or flat bread, please feel free to contact me. The bread I make is regular bread done in pans. I know it sounds crazy but it does work.

1. Your favorite bread recipe and utensils for mixing.
2. Old loaf pans. Keep these strictly for camp.
3. A grate for your fire pit. I use the rack out of an old kitchen stove.
4. A large pickling pot. Can bake two loaves at a time. I picked mine up at a yard sale for $1.00. Again keep this one for camp. It can be used for other things too. Boiling water for bathing. Boiling water to have corn on the cob.
5. Oven mitts.

For those of you who still make homemade bread, you can use your favorite bread recipe. I’ve tried several different recipes and they all work just fine. To make things a bit easier I use the fast acting yeast so it only has to rise once. Before you start mixing your yeast and getting your supplies together, build yourself a fire in the fire pit. You want a fairly large fire because you need the hot coals to do your baking. 

Once the bread has risen move your hot coals so they lie flat in the fire pit bed. Place your old stove rack on the rocks around the fire so it is about 12 to 15 inches from the coals. Place your bread on the rack and turn the pickling pot upside down over the bread. The pot traps the hot air inside much like a hot air balloon does. The only problem is you don’t have many options to control the heat. You can add or take away coals or raise and lower the grate. In about twenty minutes you have two fresh baked loaves of bread. It will take a couple of tries to get it perfect but once you do, you'll always have fresh bread at camp.

This little oven can also be used to bake other items. We’ve baked a birthday cake, macaroni and cheese, and even made cookies. We actually cooked a large roast beef with all the fixings once. The trick is keeping your coals hot enough. When trying something like the roast beef, you might want to have two fire pits. One is used for the actual baking and the other is for a fire so you can have hot coals to transfer to the oven pit.

Had I known I was going to end up writing for Hub Pages I would have taken pictures but summer isn't over yet. The weather man says we're going to have one of the warmest falls in recorded history so I may get out there one more time. Enjoy your bread and have fun at camp.