Biscuits

Categories: Iii Camping

Biscuits are more easily made than raised bread and so are used largely

in its place while in camp. The proportions of flour and baking-powder

are the same as for flapjacks. To 4 cups of flour mix 2 teaspoonfuls of

Royal baking-powder and 1 level teaspoonful of salt; add shortening

about the size of an egg, either lard or drippings. Divide the

shortening into small bits and, using the tips of your fingers, rub it

well nto the dry flour just prepared; then gradually stir in cold water

to make a soft dough, barely stiff enough to be rolled out 3/4 inch

thick on bread-board, clean flat stone, or large, smooth piece of

flattened bark. Whichever is used must be well floured, as must also

the rolling-pin and biscuit cutter. A clean glass bottle or smooth round

stick may be used as rolling-pin, and the cutter can be a baking-powder

can, or the biscuits may be cut square, or 4 inches long and 2 inches

wide with a knife. The dough may also be shaped into a loaf 3/4 inch

thick and baked in a pan by planting the pan in a bed of hot coals,

covering it with another pan or some substitute, and placing a deep

layer of hot coals all over the cover. The biscuits should bake in about

fifteen minutes. For a hurry meal each camper can take a strip of dough,

wind it spirally around a peeled thick stick, which has first been

heated, and cook her own spiral biscuit by holding it over the fire and

constantly turning the stick. Biscuits, in common with everything cooked

over a hot wood-fire, need constant watching that they may not burn.

Test them with a clean splinter of wood; thrust it into the biscuit and

if no dough clings to the wood the biscuits are done.