Baking Bread On A Stick

Bread Baked On A Stick

To make bread on a stick, just mix water with Bisquick mix (you can buy this already prepared or mix your own before leaving home). Don't add too much water or you will have a sticky dough that you will not be able to handle. You want the dough to be thick like soft modeling clay. And be sure you don't add the water until just before you are ready to bake the bread. It is always wise to keep a little biscuit mix to flour your hands so the dough won't stick to them. Ordinary flour will also do the trick if you happen to have some at camp.

Along with preparing the dough, you must also prepare a baking stick. Get a stick about as long as your arm and as big around as your thumb. The stick can be a dead, dry stick, but a green stick from a living tree or shrub is best as it will not catch fire so easily. However, do not choose a stick from a tree or shrub which may be bitter, for it will make the bread bitter. Peel off some bark and taste the sap. This will tell you whether the stick will give the bread an undesirable flavor. Next you must peel off the bark for about six to eight inches or more at one end of the stick.

Powder your hands with flour or biscuit mix. Pull off a large pinch of dough from the mixture you made. Mold it around the end of the stick, pressing it until it surrounds the stick like a piece of bark. For best results, it is wise not to have this dough more than a quarter to a half inch thick at any spot, and whatever thickness you decide upon should be the approximate thickness all around.

Baking bread on a stick requires a fire that has plenty of hot glowing coals and little or no flame. How high above the glowing coals you should hold the dough in order to bake it at the right speed to produce a golden brown surface and get it well done is something that only experience can teach. Just remember that you cannot expect to bake such bread in less than ten minutes, and ten minutes seems like a long time to hold a stick over a fire. To avoid having to hold it, place a log or a rock at the edge of the fire, or drive a short forked stick or two cross sticks near the fire. This may require choosing a prop of a different height. The end of the stick away from the fire can be weighted down with a small log, a rock, or held in place by driving two sticks crossing it.

Watch the bread carefully. As it turns a golden brown next to the fire, turn the stick slightly and brown another portion. Keep up this process until the bread is brown on all sides. Remove the stick from the fire. Gently twist the bread off the stick. Put some butter and jam or honey into the center of this hollow biscuit. It will be delicious.

Remember to try not to eat stick bread that is burnt black in spots, is gray from a smoky or flaming fire, or that is not well done inside. Practice until you can get it just right.

Twists

Twists are biscuits made by winding "ropes" of biscuit dough around a clean stick a half inch in diameter and of a convenient length and propping over the fire to bake.

After mixing the biscuit dough, shape it into a long sausage, one inch wide and 1/2 inch thick. Slightly grease the stick. Place the dough around the end of the stick in a spiral fashion.

The secret of making good twists is to prop the stick over hot coals so you will not have to sit and hold it like a fishing pole. Watch the twist very carefully and turn a little as soon as one portion takes on a golden brown. Adjust the height of the twist as the fire dies down or builds up. Do not expect to bake them in less than ten minutes. The goal is a well done, golden brown twist, not a blackened, raw-hearted one.

Dog In A Blanket

Spear a hot dog lengthwise on a long, pointed stick. Broil over the coals for a few minutes. Cover with a 1/2 inch layer of dough and bake the same as the twists.

-- Campcraft, MV Honor Series, Young People's Department of Missionary Volunteers, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

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--Happy Camping,

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