Double Frying-Pan Biscuits

This is a method rather than a formula: the dough comes from the book's Frying-Pan Biscuit or Dutch Oven Bread entries, and the two pans do the work of a covered oven. Everything depends on building the right bed of ash and then leaving it alone.

• You need the other recipe firstNo quantities appear here because the dough is borrowed from the neighbouring entries. Mix the dough before the fire is ready; note that the recipe says to "pour" it, so it is loose enough to run into the pan.
• Two matched cast-iron skilletsTwo frying pans -- The book says only "2 frying pans"; in practice pans of similar diameter, so the rims meet, and heavy pans rather than thin ones will hold the heat best. Nonstick coatings should not be buried in coals at all.
• Ashes, not flamesThe recipe calls for a bed of hot ashes below and more hot ashes heaped over the top pan, giving heat from above; too much and the crust burns while the centre stays wet.
• Grease both pans, including the lidThe recipe says to have both pans hot and greased, and it warns that the bread "may rise into the top pan." A dry upper pan risks the risen loaf sticking and tearing when it is lifted.
• Do not uncoverLifting the top pan drops the trapped steam and heat and can collapse a loaf that has expanded upward. It also dumps ash onto the bread. Judge by time and smell rather than sight.
• TimingThe recipe gives no time at all and leaves doneness to judgement ("until you think bread is done"). Since the pan cannot be opened, judge by time and smell rather than sight, and check the crust sounds hollow when tapped after unpanning.
• HandlingBoth pans and the handles will be at ash temperature throughout. Use a hook or long tongs to shift the top pan and a folded thick cloth or leather glove for the lower one; a damp cloth conducts steam straight through.
• YieldThe recipe gives no pan size or yield; the loaf will be whatever the borrowed dough recipe makes, baked as a single round in the lower pan.