How to Make Hardtack (Forever Lasting Bread)

hey youtube this is city prepping in this video shawn and i are going to take you through the steps of making heart attack heart attack is a survival food that can keep you alive actually for a few months if this is all you have and it can actually last up to 100 years if properly preserved in this video we're going to take you step by step we're going to show you all the ingredients how to make this at the end of the video we'll give you a little more about the history and how to eat it without breaking your teeth so let's jump in please consider subscribing to our newsletter by clicking on the link in the description and comment section below if you enjoy this video please subscribe and click the like button to help the channel grow here's what you'll need to get started 2 cups flour preferably white bleach flour as this will preserve longer half teaspoon salt half to three quarters cup water mixing bowl rolling pin measuring cup and half teaspoon cookie sheet or cooking screen cookie cutter jar ring or knife for shaping a clean chopstick writing pen or small twig this recipe could not be more straightforward and is excellent for kids the tricks to good hard hardtack are low temperature and long slow cooking time to begin with place two cups flour [Music] and a half teaspoon salt into the bowl [Music] slowly add a half to three quarters cup water and mix with your hands you want the dough to be pliable enough to shape you don't want it so dry it is flaky but you also don't want it doughy or spongy like bread dough mix it until it isn't crumbly and it's not too spongy here you see that it's way too sticky you will want to be closer to the half cup water instead of the full three quarters cup to solve this simply add a little more flour to absorb the moisture [Music] once the dough comes together sprinkle some flour on your working surface you will want to roll the dough out to a thickness of a quarter inch or less thicker than that and it won't dry and cook properly too thin and it'll burn brown too much or crumble too easily less than a quarter inch thickness is the ideal height don't worry if it isn't exact because there is no living agent like yeast or baking powder it won't rise the thickness you cook the dough at will be about the same as the final cookie products thickness i have made these a little bigger than a quarter inch and they still come out fine but they are harder to eat and take longer to cook you can either use your cookie cutter or mason jar lid to cut out neat circles or use your knife to cut into the more traditional three inch by three inch squares i'll demonstrate both examples i will make the traditional square heart tack for this version trim the edges of the rolled out dough and set it aside so you have a square of about nine inches by nine inches cut the nine by nine square of dough into a tic-tac-toe pattern and you will have nine squares with approximately three inch sides the excess dough you set aside can be shaped by hand or rolled out for additional biscuits here i will make a few with a small mason jar lid i've used the size smaller mason jar lid to allow me to store the finished hard tack in the next size up mason jar you could skip the rolling pin altogether and just shape these by hand if you want to [Music] using the chopstick writing pen twig or another similarly shaped object poke holes into each square the holes don't need to go all the way through the dough but they can this process is called docking the holes will allow moisture to completely escape in the cooking and drying process gently transfer the squares to cooking sheet cooking stone or cooking screen if you use a screen you can slightly reduce the cooking time and end up with a somewhat crisper biscuit place in an oven at 225 degrees fahrenheit 107 degrees celsius bake them for two hours then flip them and bake and dry them for another two hours if you want to reduce the overall baking and drying time by a full one quarter replace half your water with vodka this will evaporate faster than water 172 degrees versus 212 degrees and won't leave any residual taste behind it may also help to kill off any bacteria or wild yeast that may have accidentally become a part of your mix so this may marginally add to the longevity of your final biscuit after two hours you will want to take them out of the oven and flip them they may stick a little to the cooking sheet but will come up with a spatula you don't want to use oil on your cookie sheet because you don't want the biscuits to pick up any of the oil in the cooking process a silicone cooking sheet or non-stick cooking sheet would be ideal for this process when you take them from the oven transfer them to a wire rack for cooling if you are in a dry and not humid environment you can leave them in the air a little longer to further dry out once they are at room temperature you can vacuum seal them or use mylar storage bags and oxygen absorbers to store them for maybe 100 years or more that's it it's a straightforward means to make and store survival food it's light and can sustain a person for a couple of months if it was all you had to eat the main thing is to keep them from oxygen moisture or any insects like the weevils or maggots that might eat them history nutrition and how to eat hard tack molar breakers tooth dullers worm castles sea bread dog biscuits sheet iron ships biscuits hard tack whatever you call it it's maybe the ultimate survival food as long as humankind has been baking with processed cereal grains there's been a version of it if it was all you had to eat you could survive on it alone for two to three months and when adequately stored it can stay intact for well over a hundred years that makes it one of the oldest and most resilient foods you could have in your prepper supplies hard tack is hard it can break your teeth and loosen your fillings nine of these in some salted pork was a standard civil war ration for a soldier lacking adequate storage techniques civil war hard attack would often become infested with maggots this leads to their nickname worm castles in the royal navy the rations were a pound of heart attack and a gallon of small beer which was the equivalent of near beer today with an alcohol content below 2 the biscuits are lightweight and sturdy if kept dry they predate the civil war in the royal navy and were probably first invented when unleavened processed grains were cooked too long and too slow to be bred egyptian sailors are known to have carried a flat hard and dry loaf made of millet grain the romans had a version of their own as well crusaders carried a biscuit that was typically a combination of bean flour rye and barley almost every culture around the world has had some version of it using indigenous cereal grains nutritionally there isn't much there there isn't any vitamin c which is why sailors on long voyages would sometimes get scurvy there are about 15 carbohydrates 2 grams of protein 1 gram of fat 1 gram of fiber 290 milligrams of sodium and scant amounts of potassium sugar calcium and iron it will keep you alive for about two months without supplementation with other food sources there are several ways it can be eaten civil war soldiers would often drop it in their coffee and let the heat and liquid soften it they would also smash it and put the crumbles in soup or whatever they could gather in this way it acted as a thickener a really common practice was to soak them for an extended time then fry them in some of the pork fat that was also part of their rations this created a type of fry bread with a little more flavor you can soak it in milk or honey and soften it if it's on the fresher side and not too hard you can eat it like a hard cracker and put jam or preserves on it sprinkling them with cinnamon will add a little flavor after disaster and will help to keep insects away i will sometimes make a quick batch and take them on hikes or camping trips with a bit of trail mix as well they provide a decent carbohydrate boost if you plan to consume them in a relatively short amount of time or plan on packaging them for a long term storage you can tamper with the recipe and experiment with other grains and flowers the aztecs had a version of hardtack made from quinoa you can use bean corn oat barley rye or even almond flour different flours however may reduce the shelf life of your heart attack the natural fats in the flour will oxidize over time which may impart the heart attack a stale or rancid smell or taste the key is to cook out all the moisture so any natural yeasts or molds can't take root on them and store them in an airtight moisture free environment you can even put some rice grains in the container if it's airtight and can remain pest free don't use sugar unless you plan on eating them right away as this will attract unwanted pests and yeast if you plan to eat them right away you might add honey or sugar or even a little oil or butter but if you plan to eat them right away you might be better off just making a cookie or granola bars those will be tastier and less challenging to eat well there you have it hardtack one of the first process and baked survival foods let me know in the comments below how your batch turns out and let everyone know your secret to making or eating hard tack do you have some stored away in your prepping supplies

Channel: City Prepping

Views: 197,477

Rating: 4.9539595 out of 5

Keywords: hardtack, diy, survival food, survival biscuit, civil war food, how to cook, prepper, preppers, doomsday preppers, emergency preparedness

Id: zozEHaXVJrM

Length: 9min 34sec (574 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 08 2021