camp meals

Cherry Ice Cream with Red Sauce, Camp Version

Freeze-dried cherry cream over crushed berries, built in a cup at a car-camping table.

calories
390
weight
3.2 oz
cal / oz
122
protein
5 g
serves
4, scales
prep
10 min
cook
0 min
total time
10 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
  • Cold soak
  • Car camping
  • Basecamp
  • Canoe / raft
  • Vegetarian
  • Gluten free
  • Nut free
  • Eat in the bag
  • Pre-mix at home
  • Shelf stable
  • Basic

Ingredients

Freeze-dried cherries 1 cup half gets crushed to powder, half stays whole
Freeze-dried raspberries 1/2 cup stand-in for the fresh berries on top
Whole milk powder 3/4 cup full-fat, not skim, or it goes thin
Powdered sugar 1/3 cup dissolves cold, granulated will not
Coconut oil or shortening 2 tbsp solid at room temp, this is the body
Cornstarch 2 tsp for the sauce
Cherry or berry drink powder 3 tbsp red, sweet, unflavored gelatin also works
Lemon juice powder or citric acid 1/4 tsp
Salt a pinch

Method

  1. Put half the freeze-dried cherries in a bag and crush them to dust with a pot bottom. Leave the rest whole.
  2. Stir the cherry dust, milk powder, powdered sugar, and salt together in a cup. Add 60 ml of cold water a splash at a time, mixing to a thick paste. It should hold a spoon mark.
  3. Work in the coconut oil with the back of the spoon until no lumps show. Set the cup in the cooler or a cold creek for twenty minutes if you want it firmer.
  4. For the sauce, shake the drink powder, cornstarch, and citric acid with 60 ml of cold water in a small bottle. Shake hard for thirty seconds, then let it sit five minutes to thicken.
  5. Spoon the cream into four bowls. Scatter the whole cherries and the raspberries over it and pour the red sauce across the top.
  6. Eat right away. The freeze-dried berries soften into mush once the sauce hits them.

The original is ice cream in a bowl with a berry sauce, which means a freezer and a fridge. Neither travels. What survives is the structure: a cold, fatty, sweet base under sharp fruit and something red and runny on top. Whole milk powder plus solid fat plus powdered sugar and very little water gets you there. The water ratio is the whole trick — 60 ml, not 150. Too much and you have a milkshake.

Freeze-dried cherries do double duty. Crushed, they color and flavor the base without adding liquid the way frozen or fresh fruit would. Left whole, they give the top something to bite. The cornstarch in the sauce needs no heat; cold water and a hard shake plus five minutes of sitting is enough to move it from juice to something that clings.

Packing

Three bags: cream base (cherry dust, milk powder, sugar, salt), whole berries, sauce powders. The oil rides in a small screw-top jar. Do not premix the oil into the powder at home or it clumps into a brick.

Variations

  • Skip the sauce step and just pour the drink powder over as a thin syrup if you are short on time.
  • Coconut milk powder in place of the milk powder makes it dairy-free.
  • A spoonful of instant vanilla pudding mix in the base thickens it without the cold soak.

https://meny.no/oppskrifter/dessert/kirsebaris-med-rod-saus