Our mission for the day was to review fire building techniques and fire safety practices, and then to put it all together to cook our own biscuit on a stick. If you haven’t tried it before, cooking “bread on a stick” requires few ingredients and is a nice change of pace from sweet s’mores. The process demands a solid dose of time and attention, and is a rewarding way to practice patience.
Our small group discussed the pros and cons of different fire building strategies before settling on a log cabin (“for its stability”) with a teepee on top (“because it lights so well”). It proved to be a successful hybrid, and although it was challenging to get the teepee to remain upright at first, they did get it to work. Before lighting the fire, we paused to hunt for our baking sticks, which need to be much thicker than your standard marshmallow roasting stick.
Each child had the option to practice lighting a match. We moved hair and clothing out of the way, held the matchbox away from our bodies, and tried striking a match against the box and away from our bodies. One by one, each child lit a match, with the degree of adult assistance they requested, then blew that match out and tossed it into the fire.
It was then time to light the fire and help it along, so we would have some cooking coals. The biscuit batter went onto the sticks, and it was time to cook! We found it challenging to cook the biscuits all the way through, but we did get some tasty crust on the outside. Next time, we’ll either make smaller biscuits, or bake them longer. A touch of honey or maple syrup on top of the final product was an added treat.
We finished up our snacks, used our water bucket to extinguish the fire, and once the coals were cool enough to touch, we gathered our belongings and headed home.
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