Camp Bark with M&M's
Melted chocolate, crisp cereal, and a handful of M&M's, set up cold in a zip bag.
- calories
- 540
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 154
- protein
- 5 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 4 min
- total time
- 9 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
- Snack
- Canister stove
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| White chocolate chips | 1 cup | holds shape better in warm weather than milk chocolate |
|---|---|---|
| M&M's | 1/2 cup | the shell keeps them from smearing |
| Crisp rice cereal | 1 cup | |
| Broken pretzel sticks | 1/3 cup | |
| Salt | a pinch |
Method
- Set the pot over the lowest flame you can hold. Too much heat and the white chocolate seizes into grit.
- Add the chips and stir constantly until about three quarters of them are liquid, then pull the pot off the heat and keep stirring. Residual heat finishes the rest.
- Fold in the cereal, pretzels, and salt. Work fast, the mix stiffens as it cools.
- Scrape it into a gallon freezer bag, press it flat to about a quarter inch, and add the M&M's on top through the opening. Press them in through the outside of the bag.
- Leave the bag in a creek, in snow, or in the shade under a pack until firm. Twenty minutes in cold water, longer on a warm evening.
- Break it into shards inside the bag.
This is what a pan of M&M bark turns into when there is no oven, no fridge, and no pan. Chocolate is the only thing doing structural work, so it gets melted low and slow and then pulled early. White chocolate has a lower scorch point than most people expect, and a camp stove has one setting more than you want.
The bag is the mold. Flattening it thin matters more than how long it sits, because a quarter-inch slab firms up in cold water in about the time it takes to clean the pot, while a thick lump stays soft into the night. The M&M’s go on last and unmelted, which is the whole point: their shells are the only part of this that survives contact with heat.
Packing
Chips, cereal, and pretzels each ride in their own bag, since the cereal crushes under the chips. M&M's stay separate until the last step. Carry one spare freezer bag for setting.
Variations
- Dark chocolate in place of white sets harder and survives a hot afternoon better.
- A spoonful of powdered milk stirred into the melted chocolate makes it taste closer to a candy bar.
- Skip the stove entirely: crush everything together in the bag and eat it as a scoop mix.
https://zenandhoney.com/mms-recipes