Twice Baked Bread

[Toadflax]

I have come across references to this several times when reading about the Napoleonic Wars and assume it is bread that is baked once and then a second time to dry it out into a sort of biscuit form (so maybe it needs to be sliced before the second baking) so that it will keep, but I can't find much information about it on Google.

It sounds a sort of bushcrafty thing - i.e a food that will last for some time without deteriorating so I wonder if anyone has any more information about it.



Geoff

[Eric_Methven]

I believe there was an episode of Sharp, where his chosen men were making twice baked bread. They were making what we know as toast.

Eric

[Squidders]

Biscotti / Biscotto translates as "twice baked" from Italian and is where we get the word biscuit I think.

I found this: http://www.joyofbaking.com/biscotti/Biscotti.html

I think I know this from some TV quiz... how sad is that?!? hehehe

[clcuckow]

aka hard tack, sea biscuits rusk.

Well from what I have read of the Napoleonic era.

[clcuckow]

Havercakes were also popular with the yorkshire lads (in fact IIRC it was a nickname for one of the regiments). These are a type of thin oatcake that was offern dried or twice bakes for longer term storeage. I have made them a few times and they taste much better than the hardtack recipes of the time.

[Porcupine]

biscuit, local dialect calls em "tweibak" and i think the german word is very similar.

both mean twice baked.


amazing what local dialects are good for ;)

[RobertRogers]

So it is basically dried bread - to store longer without molding?

[clcuckow]

So it is basically dried bread - to store longer without molding?

Yes but it was normally made from unlevend bread. Usually little more than flour and water and maybe some salt.

[Toadflax]

I found the following recipe for twice baked bread (fits with my original assumption of baking bread, slicing it, then drying it): http://www.roangelo.net/valente/biscotti.html

...and the following possible recipe for havercakes...

OATCAKES

For many years John Leech of Skipton supplied Simpsons-in-the-Strand and London clubs with their weekly supply. And a Yorkshire regiment was known as the 'Havercake Lads'.

Mix together 8 oz fine oatmeal, 4 oz wholemeal flour and 1 teaspoon salt. Dissolve 1 oz fresh yeast in 1 pint mixed tepid milk and water. Add to the oatmeal and cover over. Leave to rise for 1 hour. Mix well, and turn on to an oatmeal surface. With the hands shape into flat cakes and cook on both sides on a greased griddle or heavy, greased frying pan. The flour makes them easier to handle, but some are made with only oatmeal. While still warm and flexible they were dried on lines across the ceiling and crisped up before eating with butter.

Downes Cottage, Ilkley, c.1870s.

From A TASTE OF YORKSHIRE in Food and Pictures by Theodora Fitzgibbon.

[clcuckow]

I found the following recipe for twice baked bread (fits with my original assumption of baking bread, slicing it, then drying it): http://www.roangelo.net/valente/biscotti.html

...and the following possible recipe for havercakes...

OATCAKES

For many years John Leech of Skipton supplied Simpsons-in-the-Strand and London clubs with their weekly supply. And a Yorkshire regiment was known as the 'Havercake Lads'.

Mix together 8 oz fine oatmeal, 4 oz wholemeal flour and 1 teaspoon salt. Dissolve 1 oz fresh yeast in 1 pint mixed tepid milk and water. Add to the oatmeal and cover over. Leave to rise for 1 hour. Mix well, and turn on to an oatmeal surface. With the hands shape into flat cakes and cook on both sides on a greased griddle or heavy, greased frying pan. The flour makes them easier to handle, but some are made with only oatmeal. While still warm and flexible they were dried on lines across the ceiling and crisped up before eating with butter.

Downes Cottage, Ilkley, c.1870s.

From A TASTE OF YORKSHIRE in Food and Pictures by Theodora Fitzgibbon.

Intersting. It just shows you how even in the same culture the same term can be use for different products.

But when you think about it hardtack, rusks havercake and are better suited to mass factory production and with the harder 'shell' are more soldier proof. But you can imagine some soldier getting hold of some fresh bread That would only last a day but if it was twice baked of like Eric said slowly toasted to dry it out it would last much longer (but it might not stop a muskets or pistol ball like hardtack :D).

Slightly off topic I am a big fan of Sharpes and have all the book and DVD's and food related bit that stick in my mind are Pot-au-Feu discription of while making rabit stew with red wine and the discription of frying a piece of horse rump in axel greese on a french cavalry breast plate. Very well written and it's making me hung just thinking about it.

[Eric_Methven]

Horse rump fried in axle grease - yummy! Don't forget that in the Napoleonic wars, and also in the New World, axles were often greased or lubricated with anything from tallow (dripping) or even bacon fat. Whatever they used would be from an animal source. And it would be new, not scraped off an axle.

Eric

[clcuckow]

Horse rump fried in axle grease - yummy! Don't forget that in the Napoleonic wars, and also in the New World, axles were often greased or lubricated with anything from tallow (dripping) or even bacon fat. Whatever they used would be from an animal source. And it would be new, not scraped off an axle.

Eric

I was waiting for someone to come back with that on Eric :D

Yes it would be rendered animal but it might have been from whale or fish and there were account of using frogs and tods.

That said IICR the way it was written in Sharpes Waterloo it was probably tallow but it was taken directly from the axle and I think from an unlimbered cannon and definitely used. But the way that Richard and Patrick are 'talking' about it, it was one of the best meals they had eaten.

[commandocal]

I believe its called ?Melba Toast? had some the other night, good stuff :) can get it in ASDA like 80p for a mini loaf plenty of slices, good for cheese's and pate's Search that and find out if their is a Bushcrafty way of making it:)