Does anyone have a canned bread recipe?

[RedAngel]

Ding Dongs used to be my all time favorite, but somewhere along the way they must have changed the recipe or something. Probably when they got rid of the foil wrappers (what were they thinking?). Now they don’t taste nearly as good. Also, I think they shrank them or something. I don’t remember them being so small.

[RedAngel]

OK, so. several of the recipes gave extremely different water/flour ratios as well as varying oven temperatures and times. I search for other recipes as well. They ranged anywhere from 375 degrees for 30 minutes to 175 degrees for 1 hour and also 250 degrees for 4 hours.
So, here’s my first attempt. This was at 250 degrees for 3-1/2 hours, using almost 2-1/2 cups flour (minus a table spoon or so) to 1 cup water, with 1 tsp salt.

This stuff is hard, and it tastes nasty. I hope I am never this desperate. I’m going to try @BrianK cabin bread recipe next.
Before the oven

After:

[BrianK]

The troops during the civil war thought it was nasty too. They would soak it in their coffee, or break it up and fry it in bacon drippings to make it edible. Some wouldn’t even eat it. It’ll keep ones belt buckle from rubbing against the spine and that’s about it. It won’t help the flavor, but I wonder if rolling it thinner would make it easier to bite and chew? Basically as far as taste it would be like eating flour. It’s also never supposed to brown, but look the same as when it was wet dough.

Anyway, taste was why I got carried away and got recipes that included things to flavor it. I think it was a Swedish hardtack recipe that I posted and I definitely posted the homemade lifeboat survival “bricks”. They should be easier on the teeth and better tasting.

Thanks for taking the hit for the team. I knew about it and that’s all. I never made any of it.

If someone doesn’t want to try their hand at it, a much more palatable version of Lifeboat survival bars can be bought (not at all like hardtack!). They last forever in storage and despite what the text in the link I supplied states, they taste pretty good, like a mildly flavored lemon cookie*. Of course all they supply are carbs.

At least the Mainstay brand that I have tastes good. The wife is really picky and she even liked it when we tested it.

Don’t forget that jerky is also a long term storage product that can be made at home. But for long term storage the meat strips must be absolutely bone dry making them very hard to chew. Basically tear off a piece and hold it in the mouth waiting for it to soften, or add it to hot water (soup) along with crumbled hardtack. The soldiers 150 years ago did the same thing with their hardtack.

Heck even in the recent military we did similar things with C rations. The cheese from the B2 unit worked great in the spaghetti, and a decent mocha was made by adding the hot cocoa to the instant coffee. Or these things worked when one got hungry enough.

[RedAngel]

I took them out when I saw them changing colors. They look darker in the picture but are really barely colored. Might have kept them in just a touch too long.
But, in SHTF situation, if you place the holes correctly on these, you can get some string and lace them and use them as shoes.

I do make jerky regularly, its my favorite thing of all time, and I make it extremely dry.
Just finished a batch at Thanksgiving and sent it with my family back to TX.

[BrianK]

Sorry, but I’m laughing my butt off with you and not at you. I knew they would be hard from what I’d read.
If I try it I’ll use a low gluten flour.

[RedAngel]

It’s all good. I love experimenting, and I never claimed to be a baker. As a matter of fact, I don’t particularly enjoy baking. Precise measurements slow down my creative mojo.

If I am expected to have hot coffee around or some form of soup to make these things edible, then it sort of defeats the purpose of a survival biscuit.
I think I’d rather eat grubs.

And these are about 3/16 of an inch thick, so I am under what the directions said.

[BrianK]

I hope you don’t think I was picking on you 'cause that wasn’t my intention. I liked your shoe suggestion.

Thanks. That tells me how thin I need to go. If I have to I’ll run it through the pasta rollers and make chips. Too, rye flour has no gluten and gluten is probably what’s making the hardtack so difficult to bite. Corn and beans also have no gluten, other grains as well. I think the trick will be to find the balancing act between binding things together and having it break easily with teeth. Maybe when I’m out of ketosis I’ll try it, but right now I want to stay in it.

Do you have dogs? I bet they’d love them.

[RedAngel]

I knew you were joking. Thought I’d share the thickness in case anyone needed to know.

I do have dogs. They turned their nose up.
But, I was thinking, maybe coating them with epoxy or something and using them as little shingles on the roof of the birdhouse I am building. Maybe it will give it a tuscan look.

[LonewolfMcQuade]

Maybe your “bread” can double as body armor plates?

[RedAngel]

I will have to test them tomorrow then.

[RedAngel]

I follow this guy on YT. Here’s his biscuit (hardtac) episode.

he also has various corn episodes.

[EQuinn]

This is a very interesting thread. I’d never heard of canned bread before. I’d heard of hard tack but I didn’t know what it was. Frankly, I don’t get the point of that. If you can store that, then you could store the flour and salt and make bread as you need it, right? Maybe add some fat and eggs while you’re at it. What am I missing?

[BrianK]

I don’t think you’re missing much.

[RedAngel]

Right. But, its nice to see of all your options and gain some knowledge about this stuff along the way, just in case ya need it.