The most authentic versions are unleavened, but from the early 19th century bannocks have been made using baking powder, or a combination of baking soda and buttermilk or clabbered milk.
The grain is used to make "beremeal", used locally in bread, biscuits, and the traditional beremeal bannock.
Celebrations often involved hearthfires, special foods (butter, milk, and bannocks, for example), divination or watching for omens, candles or a bonfire if the weather permitted.
Most modern bannocks are made with baking powder or baking soda as a leavening agent, giving them a light and airy texture.
Today, bannock is most often deep-fried, pan-fried and oven-baked.
When a round bannock is cut into wedges, the wedges are often called "scones".
They prepared bannock, beans and bacon, mended clothes, raised children, cleaned, tended the garden, helped at harvest time and nursed everyone back to health.
Today, many would call the large round cake a bannock, and call the triangles "scones".