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Ash Biscuit
2 TABLESPOONS FAT WATER Mix flour and salt, rub in the fat, and add just enough water to make a stiff dough. Roll or pat out into one big biscuit 1-inch thick, being careful to handle it as lightly and as little as possible. Cover thickly with flour on both sides.
Rake hot ashes and embers away from fire. If red coals show, cover with ashes. Lay biscuit down gently in order not to lose its flour covering, cover with hot ashes, and bake 20 minutes. Inspect and test by thrusting a splinter into biscuit. If splinter comes out clean biscuit is ready to eat. If not, pile a few more hot ashes on top to finish cooking. Brush off ashes and flour, break in portions and eat with butter. If not brown enough, finished biscuit can be toasted.
This was called Pilgrim Cake in pioneer days.
A single thick campfire biscuit baked directly in wood ash — no pan, no grate. The whole method rests on the flour coating, which forms a dry crust that keeps ash out of the crumb.
- QuantitiesThe printed ingredient line gives only the fat and water; the flour and salt amounts are missing. For a biscuit of this size, work from roughly 2 cups flour and 1 teaspoon salt to the 2 tablespoons fat, adding water a little at a time to a stiff, barely-together dough.
- The hinge: the flour jacketCoating both sides thickly with dry flour is what makes ash baking work. That layer scorches and forms a sacrificial crust, so little ash reaches the crumb. Handle the round gently going into the fire and do not brush or pat it after coating.
- "Fat"Lard, bacon drippings or shortening, rubbed in cold like pastry. Butter works but browns faster and burns in ash-baking. Oil gives a slacker dough and a tougher biscuit.
- Ash, not coalsLive red embers will burn the crust before the centre sets. Rake the fire aside, bank with grey ash, and if red still shows, smother it. What you want is a deep bed of hot ash, which is what "cover with hot ashes" is aiming at.
- Wood onlyThis depends on a wood fire that has burned down to ash. Charcoal briquettes, treated lumber and painted or pressure-treated scrap leave residues you do not want against food, and their ash behaves differently besides.
- Timing and the splinter testTwenty minutes is a starting figure; a 1-inch round in cooler ash may need longer. The splinter test is a skewer test — clean means done, damp crumb means bury it again under fresh hot ash to finish.
- FinishingBrush off ash and loose flour with a dry cloth or a stiff brush before breaking it. As the recipe allows, a brief toast over the coals colours the surface if it has not browned enough under the ash.
- YieldOne large biscuit, broken into four to six portions — a bread for a small group rather than a single serving.