Biscuit

Ingredients

• 3 pints flour
• 3 heaping teaspoonfuls baking powder
• 1 heaping teaspoonful salt
• 2 heaping tablespoonfuls cold grease
• 1 scant pint cold water

Method

1. 1

   Prepare dough as for Biscuit Loaf.

2. 2

   Dust flour on the bottom of the pan, place the dough, dust flour on top, and then roll out.

3. 3

   Cut into biscuits and bake in a reflector or camp stove.

Nutrition per serving

As published

This recipe was extracted from Camp cookery (Kephart) (1910) by Kephart, Horace, page 49. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

biscuit or other small cakes should be baked quickly by ardent heat; large loaves re- quire a slow, even heat, so that the outside will not harden until the inside is nearly done. The way to bake in a reflector or in a "baker'* has been shown in the chapter on Meats. If you have neither of these utensils, there are other ways. 102 BREADSTUFFS AND CEREALS. 103 Baking in a Frying-pan. — Grease or flour a fry- ing-pan and put a loaf in it. Rake some embers out in front of the fire and put pan on them just long enough to form a little crust on bottom of loaf. Then remove from embers, and, with a short forked stick, the stub of which will enter hole in end of handle, prop pan up before fire at such angle that top of loaf will be exposed to heat. Turn loaf now and then, both sidewise and upside down. When firm enough to keep its shape, remove it, prop it by itself before the fire to finish baking, and go on with a fresh loaf. A tin plate may be used in place of the frying-pan. Bahing on a Slab. — Heat a thick slab of non- resinous green wood until the sap simmers. Then proceed as with a frying-pan. Baking on a Stick. — Work dough into a ribbon two inches wide. Get a club of sweet green wood (birch, sassafras, maple), about two feet long and three inches thick, peel large end, sharpen the other and stick it . into ground, leaning to- ward fire. When sap simmers wind dough spirally around peeled end. Turn occasionally. Several sticks can be baking at once. Bread for one man's meal can be quickly baked on a peeled stick as thick as a broomstick^ holding over fire and turn- ing. Baking in the Ashes. — Build a good fire on a level bit of ground. When it has burned to coals and the ground has thoroughly heated, rake away the embers, lightly drop the loaf on the hot earth, pat it smooth, rake the embers back over the loaf, and let it bake until no dough will ad- here to a sliver thrust to the center of the loaf. This is the Australian damper. Ash cakes are 104 CAMP COOKERY. similarly baked (see under Corn Bread). Nasty? No, it isn't; try it. Baking in a Hole. — Every fixed camp should have a bake-hole, if for nothing else than baking beans. The hole can be dug anywhere, but it is best in the side of a bank or knoll, so that an opening can be left in front to rake out of, and for drainage in case of rain. Line it with stones, if there are any. In any case, have the completed hole a little larger than your baking kettle. Build a hardwood fire in and above the hole and keep it going until the stones or earth are very hot (not less than half an hour). Rake out most of the coals and ashes, put in the bake-pot, which must have a tight-fitting lid, cover with ashes and then with live coals ; and, if a long heating is needed, keep a small fire going on top. Close the mouth of the oven with a fiat rock. This is the way for beans or for braising meat. Bread is not easily baked in a straight-sided pot (rather it is hard to get out when baked). A pan with flaring sides, well covered, is bet- ter. Two pudding pans that nest, the larger in- verted over the smaller, do very well. Have some ashes between them and the coals, to prevent burning the loaf. A shifty camper can bake bread in almost anything. I have baked beans in a thin, soldered, lard-pail, by first encasing it in clay. Baking in a Dutch Oven. — This is a cast-iron pot with flaring sides and short legs, fitted with a thick iron cover, the rim of which is turned up to hold a layer of coals on top. If it were not for its weight it would be the best oven for outdoor use, since it not only bakes but cooks the meat or pone in its own steam. The pots BREADSTUFFS AND CEREALS. 105 made for fireless cookers can be used in a similar way. , Place the Dutch oven and its lid separately on the fire. Get the bottom moderately hot, and the lid very hot (but not red, lest it warp). Grease the bottom and sprinkle flour over it, put in the bread or biscuits, set cover on, rake a thin layer of coals out in front of the fire, stand oven on them, and cover lid thickly with more live coals. Re- plenish occasionally. Have a stout pot-hook to lift lid with, so you can inspect progress of baking, once or twice. WHEAT BREAD AND BISCUITS. When baking powder is used, the secret of good bread is to handle the dough as little as possible. After adding the water, mix as rapidly as you can, not with the warm hands, but with a big spoon or a wooden paddle. To knead such bread, or roll it much, or even to mould biscuits by hand instead of cutting them out, would surely make your baking "sad." As soon as water touches the flour, the baking powder begins to give off gas. It is this gas, imprisoned in the dough, that makes bread light. Squeezing or moulding presses, this gas out. The heat of the hands turns such dough into Tom Hood's "putty." Biscuit Loaf. — This is a standard camp bread, because it bakes quickly. It is good so long as it is hot, but it dries out soon and will not keep. For four men: 3 pints flour, 3 heaping teaspoonfuls baking powder, 1 heaping teaspoonful salt, 2 heaping tablespoonfuls cold grease, 1 scant pint cold water

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.