Posted: 5/14/2009 8:54:58 AM EDT
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Anyone have the recipe for I believe hard tack bread? I tried searching the archives, but I keep getting an eror message saying its down.
I did find a couple using my google fu, but I thought someone had different variations on here. |
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Might also consider the recipe for "rusks"....these are South African in origin, cookie-type baked good that is hardened/dried in a warm stove. Darn things are rock solid when you do them right, last forever and don't taste bad. Heya Go! Rusks (Beskuit) - dunk in your coffee..... INGREDIENTS 2 cups unbleached white flour 2 cups whole wheat bread flour (coarsely ground if possible) 1/3 cup sugar ½ tsp salt 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp cinnamon ½ cup melted butter 2 eggs ¾ cup buttermilk 2 tsp pure vanilla extract 2 tsp pure almond extract METHOD 1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly mix the dry ingredients. 2. Combine all the wet ingredients, pour them into the dry ingredients, and stir until you have a soft dough, similar to biscuit dough. 3. Turn the dough onto a well-floured surface and roll or pat it to about a ½ inch thickness. 4. Cut the dough into rectangles about 2 by 4 inches. Bake the rusks about 2 inches apart on buttered baking sheet for about 25 minutes until the tops are crisping and browning a little. 5. Now, eat a few "soft" rusks warm from the oven. Loosely pile the rusks on a baking sheet and keep them in a 200 degree oven all day or all night (about 12 hours) to dry. 6. The finished rusks should be very dry and hard. Cool and store in an airtight container. Rusks will keep for weeks. EDIT: on number 6, when they say weeks, they mean like 43 years..... |
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2 cup oatmeal 3 cup flour 1 tsp salt 1 tsp soda in 1 1/2 cup water Bake at 350 Or if you want to keep it more traditional... 6 cups flour 2 cups water Bake at 350 For either of the above recipes: Should it be allowed to dry overnight and then baked again at a lower temp (like the rusks?) Also, what is the shelf life with this recipe? That is, getting all the moisture out is a primary objective, correct? Because this enhances the length of time it can be stored? Thanx! 
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2 cup oatmeal 3 cup flour 1 tsp salt 1 tsp soda in 1 1/2 cup water Bake at 350 Or if you want to keep it more traditional... 6 cups flour 2 cups water Bake at 350 For either of the above recipes: Should it be allowed to dry overnight and then baked again at a lower temp (like the rusks?) Also, what is the shelf life with this recipe? That is, getting all the moisture out is a primary objective, correct? Because this enhances the length of time it can be stored? Thanx! The more traditional hard tack is bakd once but allowed to sit in the open for a long time, it was never sealed. You can rebake if you want or personally I would just throw it in the dehydrator for a period of time to ensure it was completely dry. The initial bake should ensure that +90% of the moisture is removed, which is all you need. Dehydrated veggies only look for +90% moisture removal. I would definatly let it sit out overnight before sealing to allow the hard tack to temper, it is a technique used in dehydration to allow the moisture content to evenly distribute and stabilize. The basic basic recipe I posted has a shelf life of a long time to say the least...I cannot give an exact year span but what I can tell you is that hard tack that was made during the Mexican American war was distributed to the troops in the Civil War some 20 years later. |
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Hoiw does hard tack eat? Like a giant cracker or a crouton? I guess you wouldn't want to eat one without some water eh? They are EXTREMELY hard and disgusting. Taste like flour, eats like a rock. I have seen some recipes that called for adding baking soda and yeast to make them a bit more brittle but that takes away from its hardy nature. If you throw it into some soup or add it to a frying pan full of bacon grease then it is actually not bad. |
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<Snip> The initial bake should ensure that +90% of the moisture is removed, which is all you need. Dehydrated veggies only look for +90% moisture removal. I would definatly let it sit out overnight before sealing to allow the hard tack to temper, it is a technique used in dehydration to allow the moisture content to evenly distribute and stabilize. The basic basic recipe I posted has a shelf life of a long time to say the least...I cannot give an exact year span but what I can tell you is that hard tack that was made during the Mexican American war was distributed to the troops in the Civil War some 20 years later. Ah, I see. That's what I was wondering. I wanted to make sure I go about it the right way, primarily for the sake of safety. I'm going to go ahead and experiment with it for a couple of days to make sure I'm doing it correctly and then make up a bunch of the oatmeal tack. If I do it right - and it seems simple enough - it should be safe to eat even after years of storage. Now, I made up a very small batch of the oatmeal recipe last night, left it in a sealed bowl until this afternoon (should have just left it out in an unsealed bowl), then baked it a little more on low heat. I'll say this much: I now have no doubt as to why it is referred to as "hardtack." If one tries to eat it without soaking it in liquid first, he'll end up with teeth like this ––––––> 
Thanks again for the info!
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I made a couple of batches of hard-tack a couple years ago and here are my thoughts;
- It will be hard as hell. Like chewing bathroom tile hard. Use caution. - "Whole Wheat" flour makes much better hard tack. - No single recipe I found worked, I had to pick and choose parts to make it - It does store forever, I have some that is three years old now in my freezer and it still is like the day I put it in there. - It is difficult to work it in a regular meal, but if you need a bit of starch here and there it's fine - It is NOT a cracker, you can't eat it like one. Consider adding to other stuff (stews or soups) or soaking it in your coffee like the old timers Here's how I made it: In a large bowl, put in as much flour as you want hard tack. Mix up about 1/8 cup or less water per cup of flour, salt heavily with kosher salt. (Iodized doesn't taste that good.) Pour in a splash of water and mix to get crumbs Pour in another splash and mix more for bigger crumbs. Repeat, _slowly_ adding water, the point being you have to bake it back out later so don't use much. Do this until you get a ball that barely sticks together, but is recognizable as dough but kneading it should take considerable effort. (Taste it at this point to see if you should add salt, you want it salty tasting like a cracker but not too much.) Roll out into sheets about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick and place on well floured cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees until the edges start to brown, then remove and flip. Do not rely on color to tell you it's done, you want a LITTLE browning. Place back in the oven at 250 for an hour, then turn off the oven and leave it in there as the oven cools. Remove from the sheets and break it up to try some. It should taste salty and a tiny bit "done". Store in a cool dry place, do not seal containers until it has been able to sit in a dry environment. You can use regular flour too, but I find the whole wheat flour keeps it's taste and is probably better at holding nutrients. If you end up with a bunch of grain, a grinder and lots of fuel this is something you can do to make your grain work as a travel food. I don't think I would add hard tack in any significant portion of preps just because other stuff is more palatable, but knowing how to make and use it might be useful and a lot of people basically survived with it being a cornerstone of their rations. |