Australian Bush Bread

Mansi from Fun & Food Blog invites us to the 18th Bread Baking Day, originated by Zorra. She chose the theme „Quick Breads“. This is a very good idea, since I’d often like to bake a bread for dinner, but know beforehand, that I’ll not have enough time after work to let a dough rise, knead it, let it rise some more, knead it again, bake it … I think, doing this, dinner would be around midnight. So, most of the time, I simply go to the bakery and buy some bread.

On the other hand, a bread where you just throw together the ingredients, give it a shake or a bit of kneading and bake it immediately is a good alternative. So I am quite excitedly waiting for all the other entries for this event to get new ideas to bake.

The following bread was invented by Australian ‚cowboys‘ camping in the bush, who copied it from the Australian Aborigines. They baked it in the hot ash of the camp fire, most of the time without any leavening agent and no milk.

Damper – Australian Bush Bread with Corn

Ingredients:

Preparation:

Sieve meal, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre.

Mix milk and oil together and add to the flour to get a sticky dough. Put the dough on a floured surface and knead for about 1 minute until it is soft and smooth.

Shape the dough into a round ball and put it on a baking tray with baking paper. Brush the top with some milk and dust it with some corn flour.With a sharp knife cut the loaf crosswise, about 2 cm deep.

Bake for 15 Minuten in the preheated oven (200 °C), then reduce the heat to 180 °C and bake for 25 more minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the bread sounds hollow knocking on the underside (with your finger knuckles – do not use your nose!). Let cool on a rack.

Notes:

– This is a very small bread for two persons. Use double quantities for a normal sized bread.

– In the original recipes there is no corn flour: Either replace it with ’normal‘ flour or with wholemeal flour. With the corn flour the bread has somewhat more flavour, but it also crumbles more easily.

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