On a recent camping trip to the dunes at Erg Chebbi in Morocco, our talented hosts from Wild Morocco (www.wildmorocco.com)  dazzled us with fresh bread, baked directly in the sand, on our last night. It turns out they had prepared the doe before we left so it had risen and was ready to go

Here’s how it’s done
Build a little hill out of sand and light your fire on top.
Pick your favourite doe recipe or use the one listed at the bottom. Roll it out into a big large thick flatbread.
Wait until the firewood burns and the coals are really hot.
Push the coals and ashes to the side and flatten the top of your mound.
Place the doe directly on the sand.
Moving very quickly with a stick or a shovel drag the coals,ashes and some sand on top of the doe.
Wait about 7-8 minutes, remove what’s on top of the bread and with your stick or small shovel, flip the bread and put the coals and sand back on top.
After 7-8 minutes remove the bread with your stick and holding the bread with a towel and using a sharp knife scrape the sand and ash off the bread. The bread does not absorb the sand or ash at all, so in under a minute it was perfectly clean and ready to eat.

Recipe menu
4 cups flour (high-gluten or bread flour preferred)
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon yeast (active dry)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups warm water

* In a small bowl add yeast, sugar and 1c warm water. Mix well and allow yeast to bubble.
* In a large bowl add flour and salt. After yeast/water mixture begins to bubble pour into bowl with flour. Begin combining flour and water.
* Add remaining warm water to the side and add slowly to flour mixture.
* Continue combining flour and water until you can form a ball. It should be sticky.
* Pour vegetable oil into your hands and proceeds to work it into the dough.
* Knead for 8-10 minutes
* Oil the ball and the bowl and cover.
* Place in Tupperware bowl to take on camping trip.

 

JN