Battle Bread Secret Hits the Street

OK since I have been pounded with requests for the secret for the battle bread I will divulge it, even though I understand the DSP (Dwarven Secret Police) is even now looking for me for ever making the stuff. Are you ready.... here it is ...

First make Viking Flatbread dough.(see below) However you must screw up the recipe and add 1 cup too much cracked wheat. Then instead a kneading it you must hammer it. (a rubber tent stake hammer works well) Bake in a 1 inch loaf on a pizza stone until hard as a rock. Let it cool for a month or two.

And there you have it. Good luck. And if the DSP come looking, you never heard it from me.

Viking Flatbread

Flatbreads have a long history because they have a few simple ingredients, are easy to make, and store well. They are found in many countries and cultures from the common tortilla to the pita and lavash. The Asians have egg roll and wanton wrappers and there is also Indian roti.

The recipe that I am using is taken from a Norwegian book Vårt Norske Kjøkken (The Norwegian Kitchen) edited by Kjell E. Innli, translated by Melody Favish and published in Norway by KOM Forlag, © 2002.

On page 37 it mentions that in Viking times (793 - 1066 AD) "flatbread and gruel or milk often was served in the evening."

This book offered four different recipes for flatbread. I chose this one because it had the simplest ingredients, it didn't have oats but did have rye (personal preference).

Since it is a simple recipe and hasn't changed in centuries, I am using it "as is" with no redaction except to convert from metric and clean up some of the poor translation from Norwegian.

Flatbread

3 cups water
2 cups coarse whole-wheat flour(This is the part you change for dwarf bread)
½ tsp. salt
3 cups fine rye flour
3 cups barley flour

Bring water to boil and pour over wheat flour. Cool. Add salt and most of the rye and barley flour. Kneed into a pliable, not too stiff dough with the remaining flour. Dust the baking board with flour. Roll out part of the dough into a 1 inch thick sheet. Cut circles of dough with a 3 ½ inch cookie cutter. Roll out each dough circle with a patterned rolling pin to a thin sheet. Bake sheets on a griddle over medium heat until lightly colored on both sides. Let cool. Stack under a light weight and store in a dry
cool room.

Yield: about 14, 6inch wafers

Notes: I stone ground the grains in my own mill to control the fineness of the barley and rye and the coarse texture of the wheat. Instead of a griddle I used a clay baking stone in a gas oven at 400°F to more closely approximate Viking conditions. (It was too hot outside to start a fire and make a clay oven.)

Joseph of Palmyra

House Luminous, Golden Rivers, Cynagua, West Kingdom