Every summer, thousands of Kiwis go camping – and I’m one of them. I love nothing better than a long, hot summer in our trailer and the opportunity to cook at camp. Many years ago, Kiwi girls were very good at camp cooking and could whip up a bit of Billy bread to feed hungry mouths. It’s pretty common to share food at my campground and one thing I like to make is pizza bread, which is thrown on the grill and then sprinkled with salt. Everyone is so impressed that you can cook with yeast while camping, but it’s really quite simple: just buy granulated yeast, not Surebake. My camp friend, Esther, makes a type of bread we call “doughboys”, something that many Maori Māori people have been making for years. I hope you enjoy these recipes and try them if you are camping this summer.
Billy Bread
| 3 teaspoons |
Baking powder (main) |
| 3 cups |
Flour (main) |
| 1 tablespoon |
brown sugar syrup |
| 1 cup |
Milk, enough milk to mix the dough |
Pizza bread
| ½ teaspoon |
Sugar |
| 1 ½ cups |
Water |
| 2 teaspoons |
Active dry yeast (Main) |
| 1 to taste |
Salt and freshly ground pepper |
| 4 cups |
High quality flour (Main) |
| 4 tablespoons |
Olive oil |
Doughboys
| 3 teaspoons |
Sugar |
| 4 ½ cups |
Hot water |
| 4 teaspoons |
Active dry yeast |
| 6 cups |
Flour |
| 3 teaspoons |
Salt |
| 2cm |
Oil |
Directions
Billy Bread
- Mix all ingredients in a large bowl, adding enough milk to make a paste.
- Place the dough in a greased mold or closed pan. You can then place it on the embers of a beach fire or barbecue, covering the mold with coals for about half an hour (depending on how hot your coals are). Or you can bake it in a conventional oven in a cake tin at 190°C for about half an hour.
- Another old cookbook of mine says to roll pieces of dough around sticks, then hold them over the heat, turning them so that you get little buns on the ends of the sticks. You can then fill the holes left by the sticks with butter, jam or cheese – it’s simply delicious.
Pizza bread
- Mix the water and sugar until dissolved, then sprinkle with the yeast. Leave to rest for 10 minutes in a warm place, until the yeast begins to foam.
- Sprinkle the flour with salt and pepper and stir with a whisk to introduce air or sift.
- When the yeast is bubbling, add the olive oil to it, then pour it into the flour mixture. Mix until you have a soft dough but do not knead. Set aside in a bowl for an hour in a warm place, covered with a cloth, until the dough doubles.
- Roll out the pieces to pizza size and place them on the barbecue or grill. Once cooked, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.
Doughboys
- Put 2½ cups of lukewarm water in a jug and dissolve the sugar in it. Sprinkle the yeast over the mixture and wait until it begins to bubble and smell strongly of beer.
- Pour the mixture over the flour and salt, then add the remaining 2 cups of water.
- Knead the mixture, then allow to double in volume. Punch and knead again. Flatten and cut into squares. Let rise for another 30 minutes, then fry in hot oil – Esther uses rice bran oil, which has a high smoke point.
