Okay, I was reading the books by Teddy Roosevelt on hunting as a ranchman back in the 1890's. His brother was in Texas in the late 1870's buffalo hunting and they had a couple of trips in the Uvalde area after javelina and other game. In any event he speaks about eating "frying pan bread" on another website I was asking exactly what is frying pan bread? The Navajos have Indian fried bread and up in Canada there is bannock. There are a couple of websites on Pan de campo and now I found out it is the "official" Texas state bread.
Okay, anyone actually make this stuff? How do you do it? I asked on another website and the answers were, add milk butter, eggs, sugar and bake in a Dutch oven. HELLO! it is supposed to be FRYING PAN bread and Teddy Roosevelt speaks of carrying salt pork/bacon flour, baking powder. salt. No milk eggs or sugar.
I am sort of a history buff- wanted to figure out what they made years ago.

Sounds like what you described is after frying up bacon, you fry your bread to toast it.

https://www.wideopeneats.com/recipes/pan-de-campo/

Here is one of many on Bing. Most want to bake it in a Dutch oven and use butter and milk. This one uses lard and water in a cast iron skillet but still says to bake even though their history says it was cooked over an open fire.

Looks like just a fried biscuit.................I like it. Gonna have to try this. Directions say "bake" in the skillet then flip and bake some more. Basically they're just frying it.


https://www.wideopeneats.com/recipes/pan-de-campo/

Damn, sorry. trappeben beat me to it.

I like the looks and simplicity of this. Have always wanted to get into sourdough just never have because of having to mess with the starter, keep it going, etc. Fact is I just don't bake that much.

Np. I suspect the cowboys were limited to their skillets and non perishable foods. My guess would be they mixed their dough while browning some salt pork and then put the dough on top of the salt pork/oil and fried it since they did not carry ovens around. Actually sounds good to me though I would use veg oil vs lard.

Most of the modern recipes substitute butter and milk because they think it tastes better though the op was wanting more historically correct recipes I think.

Yep, state bread of Texas. I am a connoisseur of Pan de Campo. We make it in a Dutch Oven outside with coals. I learned years ago from a man in Duval County that won all kinds of awards for his camp bread. Hit it with butter & honey while it's hot & enjoy. My kids love the stuff. May have to make some this weekend.

You can use a skillet and flip it, but honestly I've never seen any of the Tejanos/Vaqueros in S Texas use a skillet. They all use Dutch Ovens, and you don't have to flip with coals on top and bottom. All you have to do is rotate your Dutch Oven. It's not fried, you only use enough lard/oil/or butter to keep it from sticking. Most folks down here just use a little butter, and it does taste better.

There sure some funny ingredients on the web for this, hard to find one that is close to authentic. I broke out the Texas Cowboy Cooking book by Perini and got this

Here you go. I grew up around men like this, cooking pan de campo like this or on the ground. Dove hunts we had Pan de Campo, barbacoa in the ground, brisket, carne g, menudo tripas mollejas, you name it. Some of the hardest working honest people I've ever met in my life, many of them US Vets. Old vets, sweating their azz off to cook for folks. Sometimes I was the only gringo around but loved learning from those cowboys. Different breed for sure.

Just don't speak of politics or religion.

Very cool

late to the party ... my grand mother used to make this all the time, she would substitute butter milk for water IF she had it on hand. She used either lard or bacon grease. It appeared to be very simple with only a few ingredients.

Someone said to let the thing sit for 20 minutes in a warm but not hot area to rise before cooking? I'm not very knowledeable on baking but I thought that only worked with yeast/sour dough.

Right
Since baking powder only works once, and starts as soon as it gets wet,
letting your flour goods sit after mixing is shooting yourself in the foot

I've always called it skillet bread

A cup of all purpose flour
A heaping tablespoon of (fresh) baking powder
a pinch of salt
a pinch of sugar ( if you just absolutely have to)

Mix the drys
Dribble cool clean water and mix
It needs to be thinner than biscuits or bread, but
not as thin as pancake batter.
Needs to be scoopable, not pourable

Scoop out into your hot skillet and cook, and turn
like a big pancake
Enjoy

Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be

Just like whitetail deer hunting

You'll be happier and more successful

Good Luck

Well I'll try the "pancake" approach. I've actually tried it before but with a thick dough and the stuff didn't rise and it was like eating a brick.

Real cool dude from South Texas w YouTube channel. ArnieTex is his channel. Pan de Campo video and its very good representation.