Butterfinger Cheesecake in a Cup
No-bake cheesecake built from powdered cream cheese and graham crumbs, with a crushed candy bar stirred through.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 149
- protein
- 8 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 5 min
- water
- 80 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
- Car camping
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Powdered cream cheese | 3 tbsp | sold for backpacking or baking; keeps at room temperature |
|---|---|---|
| Instant vanilla pudding mix | 2 tbsp | replaces the eggs and the oven |
| Powdered whole milk | 2 tbsp | |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp | |
| Vanilla extract | 1/4 tsp | or a pinch of vanilla powder, which cannot leak |
| Salt | a pinch | |
| Graham cracker crumbs | 1/4 cup | |
| Butter powder | 1 tsp | |
| Fun size Butterfinger bars | 2 bars | |
| Chocolate sauce | 1 tbsp | a squeeze packet or a fudge topping tube |
Method
- Mix the graham crumbs, butter powder, and a teaspoon of the sugar in the bottom of your cup. Add a few drops of water and press the crumbs flat with a spoon.
- In a bag or a second cup, combine the cream cheese powder, pudding mix, milk powder, remaining sugar, vanilla, and salt.
- Add 80 ml of cold water a splash at a time and stir hard. It will look thin, then thicken as the pudding sets. Two minutes of stirring.
- Crush one Butterfinger in its wrapper and fold the pieces in.
- Spoon the filling over the crust. Crush the second bar over the top and squeeze the chocolate sauce across it.
- Let it sit ten minutes if you can. It firms up and the crumbs stop being sandy.
The original is a slow cooker cheesecake: eggs, sour cream, a springform pan, four hours in the fridge. None of that travels. What survives the trip is the flavor combination, so this rebuilds it from shelf-stable powders and instant pudding instead of baking anything.
The pudding mix is doing the structural work. It sets with cold water and no heat, which is what lets the cream cheese powder read as cheesecake rather than as a paste. Use less water than feels right at first; you can always add another splash, and a runny cup never recovers.
Packing
Crust in one small bag, filling powders in another. Candy bars stay in their wrappers, which double as the crushing sleeve. In heat the bars soften but they set again overnight.
Variations
- Skip the crust layer and eat it as pudding. Saves a bag and a step.
- Instant chocolate pudding instead of vanilla makes it closer to a candy bar than a cheesecake.
- Cold-soak the crust in the cup for an hour if you want it more like a bar than loose crumbs.
https://domesticsuperhero.com/slow-cooker-butterfinger-cheesecake