Baking with The Clan

Yes, we know — a lot of the recent activities on The Clan have focused on art and writing. Here’s something a little different!

While we know some things about what our Bronze Age ancestors ate, we don’t know all the details. We can make educated guesses about some things, and one of those things is bread.

Let’s assume that our ancestors baked and ate bread — in fact, let’s expand the grand Virtual Museum with a gallery of bread that could have been baked and eaten by Bronze Age families!

We know that wheat (from various species) was consumed at that time, as was spelt, so if you can get your hands on some spelt or wholemeal flour, plus a couple of other simple ingredients, mix up your dough, stick it in the oven, and travel back in time.

While you are welcome to devise your own recipes (please share them with us so we can all learn), helpful folks on the Internet have also created some for people who don’t have much of a clue about baking. Here are a couple to get you started:

• Traditional Spelt Loaf recipe by Shipton Mill
• Sweet Hazelnut Bread from h2g2 (which notes, “You can also experiment with other native plants and herbs for different flavours; try using wild (hedge) garlic, burdock roots, ramsons (wild onions), young nettles or berries to add to the basic recipes…”)

Remember, if you’re not too familiar with the oven, please ask for help. I’m sure your parents / guardians / personal chefs would be very pleased to assist you in the mission of baking your own bread.

All Clanners who bake a loaf and post a photo as well as the recipe you used by 30th June 2012 will be awarded 8 Nanuaks, and your photos will be added to the Virtual Museum!