Backcountry Cheesecake
No-bake cheesecake mix, powdered milk, and cold water, pressed into the bottom of your pot.
- calories
- 1100
- weight
- 8.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 129
- protein
- 14 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 10 min
- water
- 190 ml cold
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dessert
- No cook
- Cold soak
- Backpacking
- Thru-hike
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| No-bake cheesecake mix | 1/2 box | one box splits into two cakes; skip the fruit-filling versions |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 1 tsp | or 3 restaurant packets |
| Powdered whole milk | 1/4 cup | about 1 oz by weight; whole milk powder beats nonfat here |
| Freeze-dried berries | 1/2 oz | |
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | two 1/2 oz packets |
Method
- Pour 3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp cold water into the filling bag. Measure it. Too much water and it never sets.
- Seal the bag and knead until no dry powder is left. It should look like pancake batter.
- Set the bag aside and leave it alone. It thickens to pudding in anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour, faster when it is cold out.
- Dump the crust bag into your pot and work in the olive oil until every crumb is damp.
- Press the crust flat across the bottom of the pot with the back of your spoon. The wider the pot, the better this goes.
- Spoon the set filling over the crust and spread it out. Eat from the pot.
This is the rare trail dessert with structure. The no-bake filling sets from powder and cold water alone, which is the whole reason it works out here: no oven, no fridge, no fuel burned. The milk powder is doing double duty, adding the fat that makes it read as cheesecake instead of sweet paste.
Two things decide whether you get cake or soup. Measure the water honestly, and give it time to firm up before it touches the crust. Cold weather speeds the set. If you run out of patience, it still eats fine as a pudding over crumbs.
Packing
Split the box at home into two sets of bags. Crust mix and sugar in one; filling mix, milk powder, and berries in the other. Oil packets ride in a side pocket so a leak stays contained.
Variations
- Fresh berries picked on trail go on top at the end, not into the filling bag.
- Crush the crust bag against a rock if the crumbs have clumped in your pack.
- Half a cake is a reasonable serving for two people after a long day, though nobody has ever stopped there.
https://thehikingtreeblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/17/gourmet-trail-recipes-cheesecake