How to Make Ash Cakes
Learning how to make ash cakes can give you a better understanding of life on the frontier.
If you are reading book three of the Jemmey Fletcher series “Tyrant’s Road”, you might be wondering what Jemmey is referring to when he mentions ash cakes. Ash cakes refer to a primitive bread that pioneers and frontiersmen sometimes resorted to eating. If you’d like to learn how to make ash cakes, take a few minutes to watch the video.
As you can see, learning how to make ash cakes is really simple. It was this simplicity that really typifies life on the frontier. Frontiersmen had to travel nearly constantly in order to make a living. Having extra cooking gear, food, and tools would have just slowed them down. As a result, they learned how to get by on just the necessities for survival. Ash cakes certainly fit that description. Made of nothing more than bread, water, and a touch of salt, they would have added something to a traveler’s stomach when meat was scarce.
At first, you might think that eating ash cakes straight out of the fire would give the bread an undesirable taste. Actually, I’ve found the opposite to be true. This primitive bread has a strong and smokey taste that is actually appealing as long as you brush the coals and other debris off. If you’ve never given ash cakes a try, I’d encourage you to make some on your next camping trip.
If you enjoying learning primitive skills like how to make ash cakes, or enjoy learning about history, check out my series of Jemmey Fletcher books. These books were written to tell exciting and entertaining stories set in the American West as accurately as possible. Each book also contains video links to articles and videos like this to add depth to the reader’s understanding of the story and of history.
