Damper
A simple soda bread from the bush cooking tradition, baked until crusty, served with butter or golden syrup. No yeast, no fuss.
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 30 min
- total
- 40 min
- serves
- 6
- level
- easy
Damper comes straight out of the Australian bush cooking tradition, a simple soda bread that stockmen and swagmen could mix with almost nothing and bake directly in the coals of a campfire.
Handle the dough gently and briefly. There is no yeast doing any work here, so overmixing just toughens the crumb instead of improving it.
Part of our 20 best Australian recipes list.
method
Preheat the oven to 220°C (430°F) and dust a baking tray with flour.
Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Rub in the cold butter with your fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.
Make a well in the center and pour in most of the milk or water. Mix quickly with a flat-bladed knife until it just comes together into a soft, slightly shaggy dough, adding a little more liquid if it feels dry.
Turn the dough out and shape it gently into a round, about 4 cm thick, without kneading it the way you would a yeasted bread.
Place on the tray, cut a deep cross into the top, and dust lightly with flour.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until deeply golden and it sounds hollow when tapped on the base.
Serve warm, torn or sliced, with butter and golden syrup.
chef's tips
- Damper comes from the Australian bush cooking tradition, traditionally mixed with minimal fuss and baked in the coals of a campfire, which is where the simple, no-knead method comes from.
- Handle the dough as little as possible. This is a soda bread, not a yeasted one, and overworking it makes the final loaf dense and tough rather than light.
- The cross cut on top is traditional and also practical, helping the thick dough bake through more evenly.
- Butter and golden syrup together is the classic serving, sweet and simple, though plain butter or jam work just as well.