There's a point about forty minutes in — coals stacked on the lid, bacon fat starting to render into the dough — when the smell changes, and everyone in camp quietly drifts over to the table.
Damper gets a bad rap because most people treat it like a cake. It isn't one. It's a rough, fast camp bread: the less you handle it, the better it behaves. Load it with bacon and cheddar, score the top so it opens instead of splitting, and you've got hot bread that turns a plain camp stew into a proper feed. One camp oven, four serves, about an hour from lighting the fire to buttering a wedge.
What you need
Ingredients
- 450 g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
- 1 tsp salt
- 60 g cold butter, cubed
- 200 ml cold milk (or 200 ml water plus 2 tbsp milk powder)
- 150 g shortcut bacon, diced
- 100 g tasty cheddar, grated
- 2 spring onions, finely sliced
- 1 tsp dried mixed herbs
Gear
- 4.5 L cast-iron camp oven with a flat lid
- Camp oven lid lifter and heat-proof gloves
- A trivet, cake rack or a ring of alfoil to sit the damper off the base
- Baking paper
- Mixing bowl, butter knife, tea towel
- Charcoal, or a fire burnt down to coals
How to make it
- Light the fire first. You want a bed of coals, not flames — allow 30 to 40 minutes. If you're using charcoal, light it in a chimney while you mix.
- Cook the bacon. Fry the diced bacon in a dry pan over medium heat for 4 to 5 minutes until the edges are crisp. Drain on paper towel and let it cool. Keep the pan — you'll want it tomorrow.
- Make the dry mix. Tip the flour and salt into a bowl. Add the cold butter and rub it in with your fingertips until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs, about 2 minutes.
- Add the good stuff. Stir through the bacon, cheddar, spring onion and dried herbs until evenly spread.
- Bring it together — gently. Pour in the milk and cut through the mixture with a butter knife in a few broad strokes. Stop as soon as it forms a soft, shaggy dough. Add a splash more milk if it's dry. Do not knead it; working the dough is what makes damper tough.
- Shape it. Turn out onto a floured board, pat into a round about 20 cm across and 4 cm thick. Cut a cross in the top about 1 cm deep.
- Set up the camp oven. Line the base with baking paper and sit the damper on a trivet or a ring of folded alfoil so it isn't touching the metal. Put the lid on.
- Stack the coals two-thirds on top. Roughly two-thirds of your coals go on the lid and one-third underneath. Damper needs top heat to cook through and brown. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, giving the lid a quarter turn every 15 minutes so it browns evenly.
- Check it at 30 minutes. It's done when the top is deep golden, the crust sounds hollow when you tap it, and a skewer pushed into the centre comes out clean. If it's browning too fast, take a few coals off the lid.
- Rest, then cut. Leave it in the oven with the lid off for 5 minutes — it firms up and pulls away from the paper. Cut into wedges and butter them while they're hot.
Camp tips
- Prep it at home. Bag the flour, salt and herbs together in a zip-lock. Cook the bacon, grate the cheese and slice the spring onions into separate bags. In camp you're then just adding milk and mixing.
- Milk powder is your friend. Two tablespoons of powder to 200 ml water works just as well as fresh milk and takes up no room in the Engel.
- No camp oven? A heavy-based pot with a double layer of foil under the lid will get you there. Rotate the pot every 10 minutes and expect it to take a little longer.
- Mind the heat. If the base coals are too hot the bottom burns before the middle cooks. When in doubt, err on fewer coals underneath.
- Leftovers are the best part. Slice cold damper and fry it in the bacon pan the next morning, or wrap wedges in foil and warm them on the edge of the coals.
Where it fits
Damper is the cheapest way to make a camp dinner feel like an event, and it works with almost anything you've already got on the go — a stew, a curry, tinned soup, or nothing but butter and a billy of tea.
If you're setting up a proper camp kitchen, our 4WD and camping range covers the storage and gear bags that keep the dry ingredients, the camp oven and the tools sorted, so the mixing bowl is the only thing you're hunting for at dusk.
