Berry and Cake Skewers
Store-bought pound cake, dried berries, and a stick. Dessert for a car-camping fire without a mixing bowl.
- calories
- 430
- weight
- 4 oz
- cal / oz
- 108
- protein
- 5 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 4 min
- total time
- 14 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dessert
- Campfire coals
- Grill grate
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Grab and go
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Shelf-stable pound cake loaf | 1 loaf, about 12 oz | the boxed kind that sits on a shelf, not the refrigerated case |
|---|---|---|
| Freeze-dried strawberries | 1 cup | |
| Dried blueberries | 1/2 cup | |
| Powdered sugar | 2 tbsp | optional, for dusting |
| Skewers | 8 | metal, or bamboo soaked in water |
Method
- Cut the pound cake into 1-inch cubes. A loaf gives you about 24.
- Thread cake, strawberry, cake, blueberry down each skewer. Leave small gaps so the heat gets between them.
- Hold the skewers a few inches above coals, not flame. Turn every 20 seconds until the cake edges brown, about two to four minutes total.
- Pull them off and let them sit a minute. The sugar in the cake gets hot enough to burn a mouth.
- Dust with powdered sugar if you brought it.
The source for this is a scratch pound cake: six eggs, a pound of butter, ninety minutes in an oven. None of that happens at a campsite. Boxed shelf-stable pound cake is the same dense, close-grained crumb, and dense is what matters here — an airy cake tears apart on the skewer and falls into the fire.
Dried berries replace fresh for the obvious reason, and they toast better anyway. Fresh strawberries collapse into water over coals. Freeze-dried ones just warm through and stay put. Keep the skewers over coals rather than flame; cake is mostly sugar and goes from browned to black fast.
Packing
Cube the cake at home and pack it in a rigid container, not a bag. It crushes into crumbs otherwise. Berries in a separate zip bag so they stay dry.
Variations
- Skip the fire entirely and eat them cold. The cake does not need cooking.
- A packet of instant chocolate pudding mixed thick with powdered milk makes a dip.
- Dried cherries or banana chips work if berries are hard to find.
https://www.tasteandtellblog.com/4th-of-july-week-red-white-and-blue-dessert-kabobs-aunt-sues-pound-cake