Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

,346 CAMPING AND WOODCRAFTchoice) or on the naked floor, and close both thedoor arid the flue with flat stones or bark.If no bank or knoll lies handy, build a form foiyour oven by first setting up a row of green-stickarches, like exaggerated croquet wickets, one behindthe other, and cover with sticks laid on horizontallylike a roof. At the rear, set up a round stake ascore for the chimney. Now plaster wet clay thicklyover all except the door. Let this dry naturally foia day in hot sunlight, or build a very small firewithin and feed it only as needed to keep up amoderate heat. When the clay has hardened, giveit another coating, to fill up the cracks that haveappeared. Then give it a final firing.To Mix Dough Without a Pan.— When barkwill peel, use a broad sheet of it (paper birch, basswood,poplar, Cottonwood, slippery elm, etc.). It ijeasy to mix unleavened dough in the sack of flouritself. Stand the latter horizontally where it can'tfall over. Scoop a bowl-shaped depression in topof flour. Keep the right hand moving round whileyou pour in a little water at a time from a vesselheld in the left. Sprinkle a little salt in. When athick, adhesive dough has formed, lift this out andpat and work itinto a round cake about 2^ inchesthick.Wheat Bread and Biscuits.— When bakingpowder is used, the secret of good bread is to handlethe dough as little as possible. After adding thewater, mix as rapidly as you can, not with the warmhands, but with a big spoon or a wooden paddle.To knead such bread, or roll it much, or even tomould biscuits by hand instead of cutting them out,would surely make your baking " sad." As soon aswater touches the flour, the baking powder beginsto give off gas. It is this gas, imprisoned in thedough, that makes bread light. Squeezing ormoulding presses this gas out. The heat of thehands 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