How to Make Hardtack (The Bread that Lasts Forever)

oh hey so today we're going to make one of the easiest recipes you've heard of in your entire life this is hardtack or better known as shift biscuit whichever way you've learned it but this is virtually indestructible and thankfully the recipe is so easy you could even get your children to make this for your family as you prepare for the future so stay tuned as we explore the recipe for and the uses of hardtack [Music] this is literally the easiest recipe I think I've ever made it has all of really two ingredients but maybe just a smidgen of something else you're going to put flour water and salt together to make this wonderful little thing we know a ship's biscuit or hardtack this is virtually indestructible I really need met it's the precursor to what we know nowadays as saltine crackers only in my scientific estimation I'm going to say it's about 14 times as thick and about 44 times as hard because I think you could run over this with a car and it wouldn't even faze it so we're going to make some of it today and let me just explain to you why we would want anything that's difficult this is hard this difficult to eat what they did in the olden days was men would make these because they were so high in nutrition content and since they're indestructible you could carry them with you into battle or all the way across the ocean on your way to explore a new continent they last forever and we we have some ships biscuits left from centuries ago that are still just as an edible today that are available in museums if you want to go check them out but what they would do is carried us across the ocean with them or whatever and when they needed something to eat they generally would soak it in some sort of stout coffee until it would soften up and then they would just eat it that way or better yet I like it when it's broken up into pieces and fried in a little bit of bacon grease so it tastes nice and bacony that's a good way to fix it I've also heard of people using it in recipes that are sort of like strawberry shortcake only with this soaked in some cream for a good long while but the fact that it lasts forever and keeps its nutritional content makes it worthwhile for us to learn how to make it to put in the pantry and keep for the family in the future so let's do that today what you're going to do it's a very simple recipe like I said you want to get a good Bowl you want to get to really clean hands and even that the spoon is optional because really I just make this with my hands I'm going to take and the flour I'm using today is organic sprouted wheat whole grain flour it's white and I will say this when you get whole grain brown flour that's not processed it actually doesn't last as long because it has a lot more oil in it than regular white flour so keep that in mind it's the white flour that's going to last forever but let's go ahead and we're going to put an equal amount of flour and water that's easy enough right so roughly here's a cup of flour I'm going to put two cups of flour and two cups of water and let's see what we get well hold on again it's just rough estimates we can always add more if it's not going to work for us all right I've got my two cups of flour in and now I'm just going to take and roughly measure 2 cups of water this is why the kids could even make it it's almost like play-doh when you're making it 2 cups of water and 2 cups of flour and then I'm going to put 2 teaspoons of salt this is pink sea salt I'm getting and get my little measuring tape measuring spoons out I'm going to put two of these in for that and this so all together it's four teaspoons of salt one two three for all right that's literally all we do and now we're going to start stirring it and see what we get here we can always add more as we need it but we're going to just get it all stirred up here into a big fun paste so now that we've got it nice and syrupy like this we'll go ahead and add two more just rough don't even worry about measuring too tightly but about two more cups of flour okay there's one more and some people add this slowly just one little bit at a time I usually just stir it in two cups and two cups and then put two more cups in and it there's no scientific way that you have to do it but just so you know how this is turning out we've got four cups of flour in there now we have two cups of water and we have four teaspoons of salt and very quickly this is going to turn into that play-doh consistency that I mentioned and the kids love to make it into a wonderful big mess as soon as it's stirred up good I'm going to be using my hands to get it the rest of the way and it's just going to make a big well incorporated paste all right I'm going to put just a little bit more flour in there I may end up using that whole thing you can those and just don't want it super sticky on my hands like you see it right now all right very soft very squishy and it would turn out better if I had my grandma's apron on I'm just telling you right now all right so we took a quick break and I wash my hands and I have put it right out here on the counter for us and I'll tell you in the past it's so soft and easy to work with just with a little flour on the counter you can go ahead and put it out by hand if you don't have a rolling pin but if you like to use a rolling pin you can absolutely do that too and we're just going to make this into about 1/4 inch thick or maybe even a little thinner than that maybe an eighth inch thick but just roll it out loosely the kids will love doing this part as well and again it always works better if you have grandma's apron on but I'm just going to roll it out just roughly and there's my little plant here that probably needs moved but we won't get it in there all right it's about ready about felt like that nothing scientific again that's why it's so much fun and it's okay to have rounded corners because our little the kind we're making today around just so you know the traditional kind that you'll see lots of people do is they cut this in perfect squares like the saltine crackers that you're used to seeing nowadays and then they poke it with a fork and make holes all through it that's why I here on this little Finnish biscuit you see the holes and you want holes all the way through the front and the back of the biscuit so that it can release all the air that's why it's as solid as a rock so that's important to get holes all the way through it and we'll do that here in just a minute but I use these old cookie cutters or biscuit cutters from Grandma that just make the perfect little size I like that they have kind of ridged edges because I figure if I had to them with a knife or breaks on a rock later to eat the little bit of serrated edges on them would make it easy for them to break which is what you would want since they are so hard and I make big ones like this you see me doing that and then I'm going to make some little ones just for fun because having them two sizes makes it easier and less wasteful if you needed a smaller size to eat rather than a bigger size so I'm going to do that and I'll meet you back here as soon as I've got this all cut and ready to go okay now we've got them all cut out with the cookie cutters and now I'm just going to take a regular old bamboo skewer like you would use for a kabob and I'm going to poke those good holes all through it a good amount - so they're not like that of course I've made them prettier when I think about it I'll try and make them in a perfect design but I suppose in a bug-out situation it really wouldn't matter but you see how I'm kind of spreading the whole open a little bit so that it has a chance to get all the way to the back and as soon as I've gotten these in all the holes made what I do is I put them face down on the cookie sheet just so I can kind of check out how well those holes are coming through the other side and then I kind of make sure I've opened them up from the other side if by chance they're not coming through very well you'll see me do that here in just a minute for right now we'll try and make them as good as we can on this side all right we're getting them on the pan here and of course I'm laying them face down and then I'm just going to check to make sure they got good holes going through them all and it looks to me I don't know if you can see that but it looks to me like the holes are pretty good and solid all the way through if any of them look like they need extra little help I'll go ahead and open them up on this side because that's the most important thing is that they can breathe really good all the way through next I'm going to put them on 175 which is a very very low temperature and just put them in the oven for a about an hour on each side one seventy-five one hour on each side and then I'm going to let them cool to to room temperature and then once they're done let me just set this here and I'm going to show you the finished product they're going to come out and look like these wonderful little biscuits that I put in a mason jar or a Kerr jar from grandmas seal it down tight but I always put a couple of little silica gel packets here's one or I have oxygen absorbers that I put in a lot of them you'll notice the two different kinds I've made this with dark unbleached flour and this is with bleached flour these will be the ones that last for 100 years these have just too much oil in them even though they're more organic and natural they have too much oil in them to last that long so really this will be maybe 50 years shelf life but hey that's awesome I'll take it and you can see the little ones in there as well as the big ones this is such a fun little project I hope you try it this week get the kids involved because they will love the mess that it will make but make sure you use a grandma's apron for it to turn out just right thank you for joining us on this video though you're going to love hardtack in some sort of an odd way like I do yes it is the consistency of a brick when it's done but just knowing that I have some nutritional content that's available to me no matter how long in the future I need to use it it's just a wonderful comfort and we all love bready type foods so in a bug-out situation it really would actually be a comfort food so share this video with somebody that you love today comment below if you've made this or you have a favorite recipe that you make with hardtack and we'll see you on the next video thanks for joining us [Music] hey before you go let me share just a quick bit of Scripture with you this is out of proverbs chapter 21 verses 29 and 30 it says this a wicked man just puts on a bold face but the upright will give thought to his ways no wisdom no understanding and no counsel can prevail against the Lord now Co spread the word [Music]

Channel: PREPSTEADERS

Views: 644,468

Rating: 4.9145069 out of 5

Keywords: Hardtack recipe, Prepsteading, Survival food, Forever foods, Prepsteaders, Prepping, Wilderness Survival, Ships Biscuits, Bread that lasts forever, Pemmican

Id: vy15R6yPvR4

Length: 13min 6sec (786 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 06 2017