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204 HINTS ON MAKING AND BAKING CAKES.
large as to come to the edges of the leaf. Then wet your hand in cold water quickly and flatten the leaf. Put two or three large cabbage leaves over it. Secure the edges by pressing them down so closely that no ashes can enter, then put on some moderately warm ashes, then the hot, and finally the coals, and bake slowly. To find out if done, carefully i emove the ashes, but do not disturb the leaves, strike the loaf with a stick; if it is not a dead sound, the bread is done. Carefully pull it out by putting the poker at the back of the bread and carefully remove the leaves, and if done properly the loaf will be perfectly clean and sweet. Eat with butter. It will be found excellent for persons taking pleasure excursions and-while camping out, from the romance of preparing one's own bread and having it hot when away from home. Wheat bread can be prepared in the same way. If managed rightly it will have a hard crust. No cleaner, sweeter or better bread can be made. It should be eaten hot. It is good with sweet or buttermilk.
Journey or Johnny Cake.—Make a good wood fire. Have a clean white board with a long handle to rest it against. Make up a dough of meal and water, a little salt, then have your board a little hot. Put the well-kneaded dough, formed with the hands into a cake, on the board and flatten it with the hands; then place the board, not upright, before the fire, the handle supported against something. Keep turning the board around, if baked in one place, until it is done. The head of a flour barrel or a piece of it will do to bake upon by placing a flat-iron behind it, so as not to let it set up straight, but slant a little. The ash cake, the hoe cake and the Johnny cake can be conveniently made when camping out. The meal should be sweet and good in order that the bread may be so. White corn meal is sweeter, while the yellow corn meal is richer and stronger.
Ash Cake or Leaf Bread.—Make up the required amount of corn meal with water and salt or sweet milk; knead it well, then have a hot hearth with enough ashes and coals ol wood, open the ashes, leave a clean space, or the ashes may be swept away with a broom for the purpose. Then put in the dough after having moulded it into a nice form with your hands, then wet your hands with cold water and smooth the dough ; let it remain a moment to dry, then cover it up gradually with ashes entirely free from coals ; when of sufficient depth put on some embers, then the coals. When done on the upper side and not on the under, turn it over and bake the under side ; but if the hearth is sufficiently hot this will not be the case. Then take it out and wash with a clean rag in cold water. Eat with butter while hot. No bread can equal it to eat with butter or sweet milk. All the sweetness remains with the bread. To tell |
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