How to Bake Bread on a Tiny Stove?

When Geo and I were in South America we often ate bread which was not too memorable, not when it comes to quality. Soft, white, sugared dry bread is what South American countries often offer.

Baking bread on wood fire

Recipes for the road (easy cooking)

When we were in the USA we could find good bread and it came in two choices: rather expensive or a loaf of such a quantity that by the time we finished it, it was only slightly superior in taste to the South American variety.

Then, we got stranded by some virus and I had time to bring to perfection yet another sort of bread.

As always, when I have time on my hands, I bake my own. Only now without using the glowing embers and fragments of a big wood fire. I managed to bake bread on a tiny Bushbox stove, with small twigs only.

Essentials

• a tin to knead the dough (I have one 13.5 x 7 cm/15 cm in diameter)

• a bowl to place the tin in to

• a lid to place on the bowl

• a flat stone or sand about a centimeter thick

• a little stove (an electrical coil will do too)

• stones or a pit

Ingredients

• wheat flour (half a tin 13.5 x 7 cm with diameter of 15 cm)

• dry yeast *

• seeds (for example: flax, hemp, chia)

• salt

• olive oil

• water

You may want to add flax seed meal and some olive oil and/or leave the salt out.

More on where I get inspiration for embroidery techniques from around the world.

Tips

• For bread to rise you need warmth. I knead the dough a day before I use it, or knead the dough in the morning to bake it in the evening, or even the next morning. I had dough sometimes placed in my sleeping bag and tent.

• Cold nights have the dough sink in. I bake it nevertheless, though the bread will not become fluffy.

• Medium fire or medium heat source.

• Take at least one hour to finish the baking.

• Bread with yeast that has not risen much is still good to bake. It will become packed and dense and has a rather wet look.

• To turn the bread I use a sharp knife to slide carefully between the tin and the bread before I hold the tin upside down above a clean plate. It should come falling out by its own weight.

Now follows a detailed explanation on how to make your own bread. For two persons/breakfast only or for one person/breakfast and lunch.

• Mix the flour, water, seeds and optional some olive oil first with a spoon, until it has some form. Knead further with your hands until it has become elastic and will not stick to your hands anymore.

• Clean the tin roughly, with your fingers, in which you kneaded. Oil it and sprinkle it with flour. This prevents sticking the baked bread to the tin.

• Give it time to rise. Place a cloth or plastic over the tin with rising bread.

• Place a stone or sand on the bottom of the big bowl and nestle your smaller tin on it.

• Place the bowl 5 centimeter above the stove, place a lid on the big bowl with a slight opening to let the steam flow escape.

• Now, stay with your fire, keep it going and before you smell a burning odor, turn the bread. This will be around half an hour. When you have the fire going too enthusiastically, the bottom will burn and it’ll stick to the surface. Be sure that the bowl is 5 centimeter above the stove, the fire may touch the bowl though, but try not to have big flames around the bowl constantly.

• When you have turned the bread and both sides are now done, crusty and crispy, its time for the sides. I have not yet managed to get the sides baked, as in this stage they keep soft. I place the bread about 4 times on a side and bake them shortly. The lid stays on the bowl while doing this.

• Now, after all this baking and keeping that tiny fire going, the bread is done. You should hear a hollow sound when you tap it. The crust is marvelously crispy and the inside just right, when the dough had had a good rising.

Indeed, it is a lot of work. Yet it’ll be worth it!

Seriously, there is not much better than being able to prepare good food under challenging circumstances.

When you can have a big fire, here is how to bake bread quicker.

Here’s a recipe how to bake bread without flour (you need an oven though)

Here’s a recipe how to fry bread in oil without a wood fire, on any fueled stove.

And if you want bread without yeast, than simply knead flour with some salt, flatten it with a bottle on an even surface, place it in a dry frying pan until it patches blow up and blacken slightly.

The same sort of unleavened bread with herbs and/or butter is to be found here.

* because of the Corona virus I could not find any dry yeast and used self-rising flour, which has not the same effect as yeast.