 HUDSON BAY BREAD RECIPES |
After a recent trip to the BSA's Northern Tier National High Adventure
Canoe Base in Bissett, Manitoba, I was trying to recollect how different the granola-bar-like
snack was that summer
compared to the extremely delectable bars I recalled from the BSA's
Region Seven Canoe Base out of Boulder Junction, Wisconsin, some 30 years earlier. Thank
goodness for the world wide web. I began the recipe search knowing somebody would have gotten around
to posting some recipes.
Below I've listed all the sites with recipes that are anything close to
what I recall Hudson Bay Bread should taste like. I've included many
variations and sources so that interested cooks can check them all out
and use their own personal preferences and unique culinary skills to
create a high energy food bar that best pleases the palate in their
household.
My wife, Jane, used the recipe from the first URL and I've added the
notes that she wrote down after finishing that batch.
JANE'S
NOTES (2004) for the first (above) recipe that she made....
-- We used WHITE sugar, not brown as is suggested in some recipes. (I
thought she should definitely have used brown.)
-- Next time we were going to try to use vanilla extract instead of or
in addition to the 'mapleine.'
-- We also added raisins (See other recipes for quantity?)
-- We used walnuts instead of almonds.
-- You really have to use judgement as to temps and timing. Look at all
the recipes to see the range (of temps, times) and tips for telling
when they're done and what to do with them when they ARE done. Jane
cooked the bars at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes.
-- She wrote down "makes one large cookie sheet and 1 small pan."
2006
batch ....
We used the top recipe again when we made it the next time but made the
alterations mentioned in "notes" above (no mapleine). Couldn't remember
how well we "ground" the oats last time so we only partly ground them
this time. Jane made thinner layers this time (to fill up the second
pan) and may have overcooked just a bit. (Could have been the brown
sugar.) Our family liked the vanilla extract better than the mapleine.
After cooling, we cut into 2" x 3" bars and wrapped in plastic food
wrap.
A week later, unrefrigerated and hauled around the New Mexico desert in
backpacks in July, the bars were still just about the best trail food
we had all week!
My personal opinion is that the
grinding of oats and rolling the bars at the times prescribed above in
the various recipes are critical steps to achieving the right
consistency. The end product should be a little chewy, not brittle or
crunchy, fairly dense, not crumbly, and should have enough carbs, fats
and protein to keep you alive a couple weeks if you can limit yourself
to 4 or 5 a day!
Last updated on 16
July 2006 at 12:13 a.m.
