What do you get when you combine fire and cake? In this guide, we’re talking about one of the best survival foods called fire cakes.
They make for great meals and snacks in survival situations. Which only makes sense since they originated from the most horrific of all survival situations – War. But we’ll get to that.
Let’s burn this topic in your brain with the overview of fire cake.
Revolutionary Recipes: Fire Cakes 101
To get started, let’s first go over what it is and where it came from.
What is fire cake?
Fire cake is the name of the bread that the soldiers baked and ate. That fire cake is a mixture of flour and water… no surprise.
The soldiers through salt in the mix if they were fortunate enough to have some for that day. But we’ll get to the recipes later.
Fire Cake is bread.
Take that bread and heat it with a fire, you got fire cake.
Makes you appreciate the little things a little more. Most people are in a salty mood all day…
The soldiers made it by baking it on a rock in or over a fire.
It was typically cooked until it was black from cooking on the fire ashes.
(Uses of ash. Cook firecake)
History of Firecake
This food comes from the Civil War. The valley forge soldiers made this recipe
Civil war. Commonly called civil war fire cakes or Revolutionary War fire cakes.
Survival Food Attributes
What makes these cakes good for survival situations?
When it’s time to bug out, your resources are limited. You only have what is packed in your bug-out-bag and bug-out vehicle.
What makes fire cake so good is this…
Simplicity.
It’s so simple that you don’t need much to make it. You’ll see the ingredients and instructions below.
This is what makes it one of the best survival foods out there because of its simplicity.
As far as the survival foods go. It works well.
Survival Food Guide: How to Make Civil War Fire Cakes
There are different methods and recipes for how to make fire cakes.
Methods and Recipes For Fire Cakes
You can bake the cake with a stove. Or you could be a traditionalist and make the cake the same way the soldiers did back in the civil war, bake it on a rock over a fire or directly in the fire ashes. Only fortunately under better circumstances.
A bannock stone or bannock board was used to bake it as well. The term Bannock was what was used before metal girdles existed in kitchens. You cooked on a bannock-stone or a bannock-stane, which is essentially how the soldiers made it. On a rock or stone.
Here are the different recipes for fire cakes.
They are all simple as it is a simple recipe in general.
- True Fire Cake Method
- Bannock Board Method
- Leaves Method
Overview of How to Make Fire Cakes:
- Mix The Ingredients in a bowl.
- Form into a cake.
- Bake the mixture on a rock in the fire or directly over it.
- bake until the cake blackens if you want.
- Remove the cake off the heat.
- Clean it before eating.
Let’s Get Started!
Ingredients Required
To make these cakes, you’ll need:
- Water
- Flour
- Salt
Step-by-Step Instructions
Here are the step by step cooking methods.
Step 1. Prepare Your Dough
Back to survival basics. Prepare first.
Take all the ingredients and mix them together in a bowl. Mix the mixture into a thick dough.
It’s it becomes too thick, add a little more water. If it becomes too thin. Add more flour.
We want it dry and thick.
For the rest of the directions, it’s better if you have a visual. Watch the video below.
Video Tutorial
Because this is older forgotten survival food. There aren’t many direct recipes you can find on how to make it.
But we found one video tutorial on how to make it. Watch it below.
Conclusion
Keep the fire cake recipe in mind for your next backpacking or camping trip. And keep some in your bug-out bag just in case.
You only need to pack a little flour and salt. The water you already pack will work.
I hope you liked this article on how to make civil war fire cakes. You might also like our guide on how to make pemmican.
Have you ever made a fire cake before?
Visit the survival food category at The Survival Journal for more survival food recipes.
