Campfire Flatbread Cooked on the Coals

If you want to try your hands at baking bread outdoors, this campfire flatbread recipe is a great place to start. No fancy wilderness oven required; the flatbread gets cooked straight on the coals! Seriously, cooking bread on coals is a game changer. The char adds the most delightful smoky flavour. And it’s not hard:

This recipe includes yoghurt and olive oil, both of which enrich the dough and make for a soft and fluffy flatbread. One of the most joyful visceral experiences to be had around a campfire is to take one of these flatbreads straight off the coals, tear off a piece while its still warm, and dip it into some hummus, baba ganoush, or simply good olive oil, before devouring with gusto. This is sharing food at its best. My favourite flatbread accoutrements include:

• Hummus (even better, hummus kawarma)
• Baba ganoush (which you can also make on a campfire)
• Za-atar spiced beetroot dip
• Falafel
• Jerk haloumi kebabs
• Chicago-style hot giardiniera

The recipe makes a ton of flatbreads, serving eight people generously. You can halve the recipe or make extra for leftovers (they keep well in the freezer, by the way). I almost always make extra flatbreads for packed lunches, stuffing them with kofta or falafel, plus hummus and veggies, for the ultimate hiking lunch. And as a bonus, these flatbreads travel well and keep for days making them a good option for multi-day backpacking trips (see my wild camping food guide for more).

Turkish Style Flatbreads

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Ingredients

  

• 500 g plain white flour plus extra for dusting
• 500 g strong white bread flour
• 10 g powdered dried yeast
• 20 g fine salt
• 325 ml warm water
• 325 ml natural yoghurt warmed
• 2 tbsp good olive oil plus extra for coating

Instructions

 

• Mix the flours, yeast, salt, water and yoghurt in a bowl to form a sticky dough. If it seems really dry, and you’re having trouble working all the flour into the dough, add more water, a little bit at a time. Add the oil, mix it in. Knead until smooth and silky (either by hand or with a machine – I use a mixer with a dough hook and knead for about 5 minutes).
• Shape the dough into a round, then place in a clean bowl. Leave to rise, covered with a plastic bag, until doubled in size.
• Deflate the dough, then if you have time, leave to rise a second, third, even a fourth time (this improves the dough but is by no means essential).
• Tear off pieces the size of small lemons (or smaller, or larger, if you like) one at a time, shape into a round, then using plenty of flour, roll out to a 3-4mm thickness and leave to rest for 5 minutes or so.
• To bake on the stove / grill: Heat a large heavy based frying pan over the highest heat and set the grill to maximum. When the pan is super-hot, lay the first bread in it. After a minute or possibly less the bread should be puffy and starting to char on the bottom. Slide the pan under the hot grill, a good 15cm from the heat, and watch your creation balloon magnificently. Remove the bread when it starts to char on the top, brush on some olive oil, then serve (or store in a clean towel while you make the rest of the flatbreads).
• To bake on a BBQ: Make sure the BBQ is good and hot. Lay the rolled out dough directly on the BBQ. You’ll see it start to bubble and puff. When it starts to char, flip it over and cook until it starts to char on the other side, too. Remove, brush on some olive oil and serve (or store in a clean towel while you make the rest of the flatbreads).
• To bake on coals: Light a wood fire and get it nice and hot so that the coals are burning with lots of red embers. I typically arrange the fire so that the hottest embers are on one side, and the rest of the wood is on the other, so I can easily access the red embers and “feed” it from the other burning logs. Place the rolled out dough directly on the red embers. It will start to blister and bubble. Flip the dough with tongs. Remove any embers that may have stuck. Continue to cook until cooked through and blackened in places. Remove from the fire, brush with some oil and serve (or store in a clean towel while you make the rest of the flatbreads). (See the YouTube video above for guidance.)