SPECIAL DAMPER - Australian bread with beer, bacon and rosemary
Dumper is a popular Australian yeast-free bread. Otherwise, the traditional way of baking is in the heat of the campfire. At the time of the colonization of Australia this bread was a staple food on long journeys through the desolate parts of Australia, dry ingredients (flour and salt) could be easily transported and for preparation only water needed to be added. Of course nowadays bread is baked in the oven, but grilling is still popular on various campsites. There are many versions with the addition of sugar, butter, honey, milk, etc. This is a slightly richer version and extremely tasty!
Preparation steps
- This amount is enough for two people or maybe for one very hungry :) I prepared a little bread just enough to be enough with avocado spread. In any case, if you work for a family or more than two people, be sure to double all the ingredients!
- Try to find bacon without a lot of fat. I don't know if there is this kind to buy here, if there isn't, it can be done with bacon, just chop it finely.
- Fry the bacon (or bacon) dry, without adding oil to get a golden color. Remove and place on a paper towel to soak up excess fat.
- Put the bacon together with the fresh rosemary in a mixer and mix coarsely. If you use dried rosemary then add it later to the flour.
- If you are out of HR buy self-raising flour, it is flour that already contains baking powder. Otherwise, you can use plain white flour, but be sure to add 1 and a half teaspoons of baking powder to this amount of flour. Sift the flour into a larger bowl. Add baking powder if you use it together with sugar and freshly ground pepper, stir.
- Now add beer, not all at once. Mix with a fork with the gradual addition of beer. In the end you need to get a fine dough that doesn’t stick. If you have added too much beer then add a tablespoon or two of extra flour to combine well.
- Shake the dough on a floured surface and knead for about 2 minutes. Shape into a ball. Place in a greased baking pan. The shape is not important, because the dough is compact and will not expand during baking, but will rise.
- Bake the bread at 200 C for about 15-20 minutes. If you are doing a double amount then bake for 30 minutes.
- On old travels and camping, the dough was shaped into a long thin shape and then wrapped around the stem and baked in the grill. I wrapped around the sticks here for an example. Here you can see grilled. If you decide to wrap the dough around the chopsticks, be careful only about 7 minutes is enough, because the dough is thin. :)
- Serve hot or cold with butter or spread as desired.
