Toast is most easily made from stale bread, which should be cut in one-third to one-half inch slices. A single slice of toast may be made by holding it over the fire on a fork. In camp a forked stick answers every purpose. The easiest way to make several slices is to put them in a wire toaster and hold them over hot coals. Begin carefully and hold the bread some distance away from the fire, turning it often until it dries. Then hold it nearer the coals until it a golden brown on both sides. With a new coal fire or wood fire toast must be made on a toaster on the top of the stove to prevent the bread from being smoked. If the top of the stove is being used for other things, the drying may be done in the oven.
Muffins—Any good cook book has numerous recipes for muffins, most of which, can be made easily if the directions are followed exactly.
Cornmeal Muffins (for four persons):
Four tablespoonfuls butter or oleomargarine, 3 tablespoonfuls sugar, 1 egg, 1 cup milk, 1-1/3 cups flour, 2/3 cup cornmeal, 3 teaspoonfuls baking powder.
Cream the butter, add the sugar and the egg well beaten. Sift the baking powder with the flour and cornmeal and add to the first mixture, alternating with milk. Bake in buttered muffin pan 25 to 30 minutes. This mixture makes good corn bread if baked in a shallow buttered pan.
Coffee—If the family drink coffee, they will want coffee for breakfast no matter what other items of the menu may be varied. It should be served only to the grown-up members of the family. Coffee of average strength is made as follows:
One-half cup coffee finely ground, 4 cups cold water, 2 eggshells.
Mix the coffee, the crushed eggshell, and 1/2 cupful of cold water in a scalded coffee pot. Add the remainder of the water and allow the mixture to come gradually to the boiling point. Boil 3 minutes. Draw to the back of the range and keep hot for 5 minutes. Add 1/8 cupful of cold water and let stand 1 minute to settle. Strain into a heated coffee pot in which the coffee is to be served at the table.
A method for making coffee used by the guides in the White Mountains is as follows:
Boil the water in an ordinary pail, remove the pail from the fire, pour the dry coffee gently on the top of the water, cover tightly and move it near the fire where it will keep warm but will not boil again. In about thirty minutes the coffee will have become moistened and sunk to the bottom of the pail. If the coffee is slow in becoming moist, time may be saved by removing the cover for a moment and pressing gently with a spoon on the top of the coffee, but the mixture must not be stirred. It is essential that the water be boiling when the coffee is added, that the cover be absolutely tight, and that the coffee be kept hot without boiling. Half a cup of coffee to four cups of water makes coffee of average strength.