National Dishes of the World

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Damper
Photo: foam, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

bread vegetarian

Damper

A simple bush soda bread, once baked in campfire ashes and eaten warm with butter and golden syrup.

Eaten in: Australia

Prep
15 min
Cooking
35 min
Total
50 min
Servings
8

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About the dish

Damper is the bread of Australian stockmen, drovers and swagmen, who carried little more than flour, salt and water into the bush. The yeast-free dough was baked in the hot ashes of a campfire or in a cast-iron camp oven and eaten with billy tea brewed over the flames. Aboriginal peoples had long baked their own breads from ground wild seeds. Today damper is made with self-raising flour, butter and milk, baked on camping trips and in home ovens, and eaten warm with butter, golden syrup, jam or alongside a stew.

Main ingredients

  • self-raising flour
  • butter
  • milk
  • salt

More: Wikipedia (en)

Recipe

Damper

https://foodmap.ominuvo.com/dish/damper

Ingredients

8 servings

8 servings

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 200°C and dust a baking tray with flour.

  2. Mix the flour and salt, then rub in the butter with your fingertips until it looks like breadcrumbs.

  3. Make a well in the centre, pour in the milk and water and mix quickly with a knife to a soft, slightly sticky dough.

  4. Turn out onto a floured surface, knead briefly and shape into a round loaf about 20 cm across.

  5. Place it on the tray, cut a deep cross in the top, brush with milk and dust with flour.

  6. Bake for 30–35 minutes until golden and hollow-sounding when tapped underneath. Serve warm.

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