Bannock, from the Gaelic bannach, was once a generic term for bread in the north and west of these islands, where wheat and ovens were in short supply. Though regional and historical variations abound (you can find a recipe for the fruitcake known as Selkirk bannock here), these days, if you see a bannock on a menu, perhaps paired with a bowl of soup, or with sausage and bacon, it will probably be a flattish quick bread not unlike a slightly squashed scone, cooked on a hot griddle and on your plate in mere minutes, ready to be loaded up with salty butter.
The (possibly partisan) baker James Morton describes the bannock as a “Shetlandic staple, claimed in name by many Scots cultures, but owned today by just one” – and certainly I’ve never enjoyed so many as on a recent trip to the UK’s most northerly outpost – but you don’t have to be at the same latitude as Greenland to appreciate the bannock’s fluffy charms. Quick, frugal and endlessly versatile, in a winter when few of us are rushing to turn on the oven, the bannock may well become your new best friend.
