Butterscotch Cashew Gorp
Four things in a bag, half of them candy. Pack it in single servings or you will eat it in one.
- calories
- 320
- weight
- 2 oz
- cal / oz
- 160
- protein
- 5 g
- serves
- 10, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 5 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.
- Snack
- No cook
- Backpacking
- Day hike
- Thru-hike
- Bikepacking
- Car camping
- Vegetarian
- Eat in the bag
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Cashew pieces | 1 can (about 2 cups) | pieces cost less than halves and mix better |
|---|---|---|
| Butterscotch chips | 1 package (11 oz) | |
| Peanut butter chips | 1 package (10 oz) | |
| Yogurt-covered raisins | 1 pouch (about 1 cup) | |
| Dried cranberries | 1 pouch (about 1 cup) |
Method
- Dump everything into a large bowl and stir with your hands until the chips stop clumping together.
- Portion into snack bags, roughly a heaping half cup each.
- Seal and pack. Nothing else happens until you are hungry.
This is a candy mix that happens to have nuts in it, and that ratio is the point. Coated chips carry fat and sugar at about 150 calories an ounce with no water weight and no fridge, which is what you want in a pocket snack on a cold morning. The cashews and cranberries are there so it is not pure confection.
The only real failure mode is heat. Butterscotch and yogurt coatings soften around 80°F and set back up into one solid block, so keep the bags buried deep in the pack rather than in a lid pocket in the sun. If it does fuse, break it up before it cools rather than after.
Packing
Snack-size bags, not one big sack. Small bags stay closed between breaks, and nobody is reaching a dirty hand into the communal supply. In hot weather the bags ride at the bottom of the pack, against the frame, where it stays coolest.
Variations
- Swap the cranberries for chopped dried apricot if you want less sugar per bite.
- Pretzel pieces cut the sweetness and add salt.
- Leave out the peanut butter chips and the cashews and it stops being a nut hazard, though the calories drop with them.
https://trailcooking.com/snacks/candy-de-lite