A Recipe for a Soggy Snack

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This simple Australian Damper Recipe with only three ingredients is unrivaled.

This yeast-free bread is every bit as delicious and reassuring as it was when it was first created in the 1800s by Australian bushmen and early settlers. The recipe for this yeast-free bread was adapted from another Damper recipe that was popularized during the bread shortages of 1943.

You can serve it with soup at a dinner party, or you can enjoy it with lashings of butter or golden syrup while sitting around a campfire. In point of fact, it's wonderful for whenever you get the urge for your own quick and easy homemade bread fix.

This recipe for Damper includes directions for cooking it at home in an oven as well as instructions for cooking it in the great outdoors over a camp fire.

The Ultimate Recipe for an Australian Damper

The name Damper appeared for the first time in the memoirs edited by Barron Field, who served as a judge on the Supreme Court of New South Wales between the years 1817 and 1824.

Back then, the damper bread was made with flour, water, and salt, and it was cooked by being buried in the hot coals of a camp fire. The ingredients included flour, water, and salt. Before eating, the ashes were cleaned with a brush.

Since the 1800s, a lot of things have changed, and our damper recipes have evolved along with them.

The majority of modern recipes call for self-rising flour, and butter may occasionally be rubbed into the flour as well. In many cases, milk is substituted for water.

The recipes that I've used to create this dish share two key characteristics in common with each other.

1. They are straightforward, with no extraneous components or procedures.
2. They manage to strike the right balance between producing a delicious damper and remaining as authentic as possible to the bushman's damper in its original form.

The first is a recipe for Damper, which was supplied by the Home Science Department of the East Sydney Technical College and published in a Sydney newspaper during the bread shortages of 1943.

The "Fair Dinkum Damper" recipe can be found in Bushell's Cook Book: 100 Recipes from Australia's Past, which was first published in 1983. This is the second recipe that I've used to create this one.

"How to make Damper," published in The Sun on March 16, 1943, on page 3 (top), and "Fair Dinkum Damper," published in Bushell's Cook Book: 100 Recipes from Australia's Past in 1983

Recipe for Dampness: the constituent parts

You only need these three fundamental ingredients to make this famous Australian Damper bread: flour, butter, and milk.

– Three cups of self-rising flour (also known as SR flour).

– teaspoon salt

– 1 ¼ cups milk

It is not a problem if you only have plain flour (also known as all-purpose flour). Just combine three cups of plain flour with one and a half tablespoons of baking powder.

You can use water as a substitute for milk if you don't have any milk or if you don't have enough milk. It will still be damper, but in my opinion, it won't have nearly as much flavor.

In addition to that, you'll require the following items:

a very sizable bowl

– butter knife

a baking sheet for cooking at home, or a camp oven, cast-iron pot, or aluminum foil for cooking over an open fire.

Just a few easy steps to achieve the ideal damper

1. Sift flour and salt

To begin, put your flour and salt through a sieve into a large bowl.

Make use of some height above the bowl in order to incorporate air into the mixture.

In the event that you do not possess a sifter, you can easily whisk the flour in the bowl using a whisk or fork.

2. Warm and add milk

Next, bring the milk to a simmer, but do not let it boil, and pour it into the bowl. Use a butter knife to combine ingredients until they form a cohesive mass.

If there are dry crumbly bits remaining in the bottom of the bowl, add an additional one to two tablespoons of warm milk until the mixture comes together.

If the mixture seems like it will not come together, add a little bit more flour.

3. Form the dough into a round shape by kneading it gently.

Place the dough on a surface that has been dusted with flour, and knead it very gently into a round shape.

If you are camping or don't have access to a surface, you can simply carry out this step in the large bowl that you have available to you.

When you are doing your own cooking at home, place the round onto a baking tray that has been greased and floured, and then gently flatten it to a diameter of about 13 to 14 centimeters.

Damper should be wrapped in aluminum foil or placed on a greased piece of foil in a camp oven if you are going to cook this bush bread over an open fire. Again, the round should be between 13 and 14 centimeters in diameter.

4. Cook for approximately twenty-five minutes in the oven or over the camp fire.

If you are doing the cooking at home, preheat the oven to fan-forced 200 degrees Celsius, and place the damper on the lowest shelf of the oven. Bake for twenty-five minutes, or until the color is a deep golden brown.

Damper should be covered with hot coals when cooking over a campfire, and baking should continue for approximately the same amount of time.

Take the damper out of the oven or off the fire, and place it on a wire rack so that it can cool.

Tap the base to see if the damper has reached the desired level of doneness. It should have a hollow sound. In that case, put it back in the oven for another five minutes.

Savoring some of that Australian Damper Bread

You can either serve your damper warm or let it cool.

In some cultures, it is traditionally served with butter or "Cocky's Joy," which is another name for golden syrup.

It is also delicious when combined with condiments, preserves, or jams.

Are you looking for additional bread recipes that are both simple and delicious?

Discover the bread collection that Cooking with Nana Ling has to offer here.