About this recipe

Damper was the mainstay of the early settlers in Australia and was baked on the coals in a cast iron pot called a “camp oven”.  The pot was then covered with hotel coals on top of the camp over to ensure thee damper baked evenly. The traditional damper recipe included water, bi-carb and coarse flour occasionally ‘stretched’ with flour milled from wild seeds or nuts.

More modern recipes include self raising flour and butter which over a smoother and slightly richer flavoured damper. My gourmet damper flavoured with riberry confit and blue cheese is a twist on the traditional damper, but will definitely be a talking point.

Ingredients

800g (3½ cups) self raising flour
250ml (1 cup) full cream milk
pinch of salt
100g (3½ oz.) butter
60g (¼ cup) riberry confit
100g (3½ oz.) blue cheese

Cooking instruction

Pre-heat the oven. Then sift the self raising flour and salt into a bowl. Rub in the butter with the flour till it has a crumbly textute. Add the milk and salt to make a soft dough without over-working the mix, it should be just incorporated and as airy as possible. Then add the riberries and the coarsely broken up blue cheese into the dough. Shape the damper into a round loaf and dust with a little more flour. Sprinkle a little flour to the camp oven to check the heat and lessen the damper sticking or use a floured, shallow, 25cm round, cake tin if just oven baking. Bake at 180°C in your conventional oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the loaf makes a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom.

If cooking the damper in the camp oven, fit the heated lid and place the camp oven onto hot coals and add more hot coals onto the lid; if there’s a wind blowing, build a windbreak or replace the coals regularly and pile up some extra hot coals on the windward side as this will cool off and make the baking un-even; also turn the camp oven often to help distribute the heat around the damper.

Serve damper hot or warm, with or without butter and either pull apart into rough chunks for dunking or slice the damper up for sandwiches or toast.