Bannock Bread Recipe: Campfire Bread on a Stick, in a Pan and in the Ashes

What is bannock bread?

The word bannock originally described a flat, round bread from Scotland and northern England, once made from oats or barley and baked on a griddle stone. In Canada and the northern United States, bannock usually means a quick wheat bread raised with baking powder and fried or baked in a pan. Around campfires in Europe the same dough is wound around a stick as twist bread – in Germany called Stockbrot.

What makes bannock perfect for bushcraft is that it needs no oven, no kneading marathon and no yeast. The dry ingredients keep for weeks, weigh little and are dense in energy. Add water at camp and you have fresh, hot bread in minutes – on a stick, in a pan or in the ashes.

Basic bannock recipe: ratios per person

Bannock is about ratios rather than exact recipes. Once you know them, you can scale for one person or a group of twelve without a scale. The quick version uses baking powder and goes straight onto the fire; the yeast version is fluffier but needs time to rise.

Quick baking-powder bannock

This is the classic trail version. Mix the dry premix with oil, add water gradually, knead for 30 seconds and cook immediately. Baking powder starts reacting as soon as it gets wet and again with heat, so do not let the dough sit for more than 10–15 minutes.

What the dough should look like

Press a floured fingertip into the dough. Good bannock dough feels like soft modelling clay: the dent stays, nothing sticks to your finger, and the surface is matt rather than shiny. If strings of dough cling to your finger, work in a teaspoon of flour at a time. If the edges crack when you flatten a piece, wet your hands and knead once more – that adds just enough water without making the dough slack.

Yeast version (for twist bread)

For softer, more bread-like twist bread, use yeast. For four people: 500 g flour, 7 g dried yeast (one sachet), 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, 3 tbsp oil and about 250–300 ml lukewarm water. Knead for 5 minutes, cover and leave somewhere warm – beside the fire, not on it – for 30–60 minutes until roughly doubled. On a cold evening rising can take much longer, which is why many campers mix the yeast dough at home or before setting up camp.

Make a bannock premix at home

The smartest bannock trick happens in your kitchen. Weigh out portions of flour, baking powder, salt and milk powder into zip bags, one bag per meal. Label it with the amount of water and fat to add. At camp you just pour in water, squeeze the bag to mix, and you never need to carry separate tins or measure in the dark.

Keep the premix dry and airtight; baking powder loses strength when damp. Stored cool and dry, a premix keeps for several weeks. For packing tips and protecting food from moisture and animals, see storing food at camp. The trail food calorie planner helps you work out how many portions you need for a trip, and the bushcraft kit list shows where the bag fits into your pack.

Campfire bread on a stick (twist bread)

Twist bread is the most fun way to cook bannock and the one children love. The trick is a good stick and patience over the embers.

Choosing and preparing the stick

Use a straight, green stick about thumb-thick (1.5–2.5 cm) and 1–1.5 m long. A thin stick gives a thin ring of dough that burns quickly; a thicker stick gives a hollow bread you can fill later. Stick to species you can identify with certainty and that are known to be safe, such as hazel or birch. Never use yew, laburnum, holly, or any wood you cannot identify, and never use painted, treated or pressure-impregnated timber. Peel the bark from the top 20–25 cm with a bushcraft knife – bark can taste bitter and carries dirt. If you cut sticks yourself, only do so where you are allowed; see our carving basics for safe knife technique.

Checkpoints while it bakes

• After 2–3 minutes: the dough turns from glossy to matt and firms up. If it already browns, you are too close.
• After 5–8 minutes: pale golden patches all round, and the spiral has swollen and closed most of the gaps.
• After 10–15 minutes: even golden brown, dry to the touch, and the bread turns loosely on the stick. That loose turn is the most reliable sign that the inside is baked.

A useful drill for beginners: bake the first twist bread of the evening as a test piece and break it open. You then know how long your embers need tonight and can time the rest of the group's bread to it.

Pan bannock: the traditional way

In the Canadian North, bannock is usually made in a frying pan. It is less fiddly than twist bread and feeds several people at once.

Press the dough into a round about 1.5–2 cm thick that fits your pan. Heat a little oil in the pan over low heat – a few coals raked to the edge of the fire, or the lowest stove setting. Cook for 6–10 minutes per side with a lid on, so the top sets in the trapped heat. Flip once. When both sides are golden and the bannock sounds hollow when tapped, it is done.

A heavy steel or cast-iron pan spreads heat evenly; thin aluminium pans burn the bottom easily. Our guide to bushcraft cookware compares materials. For a thicker, oven-baked bannock, a Dutch oven with coals on the lid works beautifully. You can also prop the pan upright facing the fire for the last few minutes to brown the top – the old "reflector" method.

Ash cake and hot-stone bannock

No pan and no stick? Bannock can be baked straight in the fire, as people have done for centuries.

Ash cake: make a flat round of stiff dough about 1–1.5 cm thick. Rake a patch of hot, white ash and embers flat, lay the bread on it and cover with a thin layer of hot ash. Bake for about 5–8 minutes per side, then tap and brush off the ash. The crust will carry some ash; that is part of the method, but avoid ash from treated wood, rubbish or anything but clean natural wood.

Hot stone: heat a flat, dry stone beside the fire for 30 minutes and bake thin rounds on it like on a griddle. Never use stones from rivers or wet ground – trapped water can make them crack or burst violently when heated.

Bannock variations: savoury, sweet and wholemeal

The base dough is a blank canvas. Add extras to the premix or knead them in at camp.

• Savoury: grated hard cheese (20–30 g per person), dried herbs, garlic powder, chopped bacon or salami, a few chilli flakes. Use herbs you bought, not foraged ones.
• Sweet: 1–2 tsp sugar, cinnamon, raisins or chopped dried fruit, chocolate chips. Sweet dough burns faster, so bake further from the heat.
• Wholemeal: replace up to half the flour with wholemeal or spelt. It needs a little more water and gives a nuttier, more filling bread.
• Oat bannock: swap 20–30 % of the flour for fine oats – a nod to the Scottish original.

More camp meals that pair well with bannock – stews, soups and one-pot dishes – are in our bushcraft recipes.

How many calories are in bannock?

Plain wheat flour provides roughly 340–360 kcal per 100 g, and oil or butter about 7–9 kcal per gram. A typical portion of 110 g flour with 1 tbsp oil and some milk powder therefore comes to an estimated 450–550 kcal. The premix itself has an energy density of around 3.5–4 kcal per gram – comparable to the "standard" setting in our calorie planner.

These are rough estimates; exact values depend on your flour, fat and extras. Check the nutrition labels on your ingredients if you need precise numbers.

Twist bread with kids: safety first

Bread on a stick is often a child's first real campfire job. With a few rules it is safe and a lot of fun.

Bannock troubleshooting: raw inside, burnt outside

Nearly every bannock problem comes down to too much heat, too thick a dough, or the wrong water content.

The right fire for baking bread

Bread needs steady, moderate heat from embers. A small fire of dry hardwood – beech, oak, birch or ash – burned down for 20–30 minutes gives a bed of coals that lasts long enough for a round of twist bread. A keyhole fire, with a flame side for feeding and an ember side for baking, is ideal for groups; see fire lays. The firewood calculator estimates how much fuel you need.

Check local fire rules before you light anything. Open fires are banned in many forests and parks, especially in dry periods, and rules vary by country and region. Our campfire safety guide covers safe fire sites, fire bans and putting a fire out completely. For more ideas, head back to the cooking hub.