_Another method_ of mixing is the following:--Put the water into the basin
first and stir the meal quickly into it with a spatula or wooden spoon.
When it gets too stiff to be stirred, add the rest of the meal. Knead for
two minutes, and shape into loaves as above.

BAKING.--Bake on the bare oven shelf, floored. If possible have a few
holes bored in the shelf. This is not absolutely necessary, but any tinker
or ironmonger will perforate your shelf for a few pence. Better still are
wire shelves, like sieves. (This does not apply to gas ovens.)

Start with a hot oven, but not too hot. To test, sprinkle a teaspoonful of
flour in a patty pan, and put in the oven for five minutes. At the end of
that time, if the flour is a light golden-brown colour, the oven is right.
Now put in the bread and keep the heat of the oven well up for half an
hour. At the end of this time turn the loaves. Now bake for another hour,
but do not make up the fire again. Let the oven get slightly cooler. The
same result may perhaps be obtained by moving to a cooler shelf. It all
depends on the oven. But always start with a hot oven, and after the first
half hour let the oven get cooler.

Always remember, that the larger the loaves the slower must be the baking,
otherwise they will be overdone on the outside and underdone in the middle.

Do not open the oven door oftener than absolutely necessary.

If a gas oven is used the bread must be baked on a baking sheet placed on
a sand tin. A sand tin is the ordinary square or oblong baking tin,
generally supplied with gas stoves, filled with silver sand. A baking
sheet is simply a piece of sheet-iron, a size smaller than the oven