Backcountry No-Bake Cheesecake
Instant cheesecake pudding, powdered milk, and crushed grahams, shaken cold in a bag.
- calories
- 420
- weight
- 4.2 oz
- cal / oz
- 100
- protein
- 10 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 5 min
- water
- 120 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
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Canoe / raft
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Instant cheesecake pudding mix | 1/4 cup | instant only, the cook-and-serve kind will not set cold |
|---|---|---|
| Powdered whole milk | 3 tbsp | replaces the cream cheese and cream |
| Graham crackers | 2 sheets | crushed at home |
| Butter powder | 1 tbsp | |
| Freeze-dried berries | 1/4 cup | |
| Salt | a pinch |
Method
- Crush the graham crackers and butter powder together in their own bag until it looks like wet sand. Set it aside.
- Put the pudding mix, powdered milk, and salt in a quart freezer bag. Add 120 ml of cold water.
- Seal out the air and knead the bag for two minutes. It goes from soupy to thick and stops sliding.
- Drop in the freeze-dried berries and the graham mix. Fold them in with a few squeezes so the crumb stays in streaks.
- Let it sit ten minutes in the shade or in a cold creek. Eat out of the bag.
Home no-bake cheesecake leans on cream cheese and a fridge, neither of which exists on trail. Instant pudding mix and powdered whole milk do the same job: the starch and the protein set up in cold water alone, no gelatin and no chilling below air temperature. Ten minutes of standing is enough for it to hold a spoon.
The crumb goes in last and stays dry until then. Butter powder gives it enough fat to read as crust rather than cracker dust, and freeze-dried berries pull water out of the mix as they rehydrate, which tightens the whole thing further. Warm afternoons make it looser; it still eats fine, just closer to pudding than to cheesecake.
Packing
Two bags: pudding mix, milk powder, and salt in one; crumb and butter powder in the other. Berries can ride with the crumb. Keep them separate until camp or the crumb turns to paste in your pack.
Variations
- Skip the milk powder and use powdered coconut milk to make it dairy-free.
- Cocoa powder in the crumb bag turns it into a chocolate crust.
- A splash of instant lemonade powder in the water sharpens it toward a key lime version.
https://domesticsuperhero.com/best-no-bake-desserts