• Comments (5)

    • 4

      Does anyone know of a place that sells traditional hardtack?  I’ve made lots of it, but would like to order basic hardtack.  Seems like there should be a company or small business that sells it.  The only thing I’ve found is more of a hard cracker.  As you can see below, they have lots of unnecessary ingredients.  

      Screen Shot 2021-06-08 at 2.55.34 PM

      Ingredients: Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Vegetable Shortening (Contains one or more of the following partially hydrogenated oils: soybean, canola, cottonseed), Sugar, Corn Syrup, Whey, Leavening (Sodium Bicarbonate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Ammonium Bicarbonate), Salt.

      • 2

        Before I attempted to make my own hard tack I too looked up if there was any commercial product out there that I could just buy in bulk. I couldn’t find anything back in 2018. 

        Did another quick google search to see if any companies have come out with something and still did not find any that didn’t contain less than ten ingredients.

        I did find bread in a can though! Thought that was interesting.

        You should give hard tack making a try, it’s not too bad

    • 5

      Hi,

      I cooked a batch as a Saturday project recently. The 2 part flour/1 part water worked perfectly, although it is easy to get the dough too wet (I had to correct by adding surgical amounts of flour to get back to the right concistency). Fast cooking also works well with a fan assisted oven, no cracking or excessive browning.

      The trouble is really with the eating, as I think hard tack is a bit of an acquired taste… The important note is that it behaves a bit like freeze dried food:rehydration times with cold liquid is a multiple of the ones with hot water. I had no luck at all with cold milk even after a few hours. With hot coffee after 30 minutes you get a form of very crunchy biscuit.

      Still need to try the bacon and hardtack combo. 

      • 2

        I made some hard tack back in 2018, but haven’t tried rehydrating it or cooking with bacon. Do you have any tips when rehydrating with cold or hot water?

        Do I just soak it in a bowl and pull out before it gets too soggy?

        How long should I expect to wait?

      • 2

        A few days ago, I let a piece soak in cold water overnight. It was a bit soggy in the morning, but still held its shape. I pan fried it with some bacon. Even with bacon fat, it is still extremely bland, but perfectly edible.