Cinnamon Hardtack & Coffee, Please!

I have several reenactor friends--Ok, I did that myself for years--and one of them on Facebook does a little something special to her hardtack for the holidays. Personally, I see this heartshaped for Valentine's Day. The first part is a recipe from Total Gettysburg, from a blog called (I think) Wedded To War.

So, my friend makes this recipe, but sprinkles sugar and cinnamon on top of the crackers. Aw!!!!!!!!

Dr. Caleb Lansing’s Hardtack

Wiping his glistening forehead with the back of his hand, Caleb looked through the haze of smoke at the rest of the camp. The men sat on the ground or overturned barrels, unwrapping small bundles of hardtack from their haversacks. He pulled out his own, placed it on a flat rock, and rammed a Sharp rifle butt onto it, breaking it into pieces. ~Wedded to War

Hardtack was a staple food in the Union soldier’s diet, but notorious for being either rock hard or full of weevils. Imagine drilling and marching for miles with very little but hardtack to eat!

Ingredients:

- butter for greasing the baking pan
- 5 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 TB baking powder
- 1 TB salt
- 1 2/3 cups water

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Grease the baking sheet. In a medium sized bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and water. Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon. With freshly washed hands, squeeze the flour mixture with your fingers, this will be a very stiff dough. Flatten the dough to about 1/2 inch into a large rectangle. Using a knife, lightly trace lines into the dough to divide the pieces into 3 X 3″ square pieces.

Use a toothpick to prick holes across the entire surface in neat rows 3/4 of an inch apart. Be sure the holes go all the way through the dough to the baking sheet. Bake the dough about 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Allow to cool 10 minutes. Remove the hardtack from the baking sheet with a metal spatula. Makes about 9 hard crackers.