camp meals

Cookies and Cream Cheesecake in a Cup

Cheesecake filling built cold from powder and sandwich cookies, no oven and no fridge.

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
90 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

Cream-filled sandwich cookies 5 cookies one held back whole, four crushed
Cheesecake instant pudding mix 3 tbsp the no-bake filling powder works too
Powdered whole milk 3 tbsp
Sugar 1 tsp skip it if your pudding mix is already sweetened
Vanilla extract or vanilla powder 1/8 tsp
Salt a pinch

Method

  1. Crush four cookies inside their bag with the bottom of your pot. Leave a few chunks.
  2. Put the pudding mix, milk powder, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a mug or a wide-mouth jar.
  3. Add 90 ml of cold water a little at a time, stirring hard after each pour. Adding it all at once gives you lumps you will not get out.
  4. Stir until it thickens, about a minute. Fold in the crushed cookies.
  5. Set the whole cookie on the bottom or the top, whichever you prefer, and let it sit five minutes in cold water or snow if you have it.

The original is baked cheesecake: cream cheese, eggs, sour cream, a low oven, then four hours in the fridge. None of that travels. What makes cheesecake read as cheesecake is tang, fat, and thickness, so this version gets all three from powder — instant cheesecake pudding mix for the tang and the set, whole milk powder for the fat. No eggs, no oven, no cold chain.

The cookie does the rest. One left whole at the bottom of the cup stands in for the crust, and the crushed ones stirred through carry the cookies-and-cream part. Use cold water and add it slowly; warm water and a fast pour both give you a lumpy, loose cup that never firms up.

Packing

Pudding mix, milk powder, sugar, vanilla powder, and salt go in one small bag. Cookies ride in a rigid container or they arrive as dust, which still works but looks worse.

Variations

  • Cold coffee instead of water makes it a mud pie.
  • A spoonful of cocoa powder darkens it toward chocolate cheesecake.
  • Powdered coconut milk in place of dairy milk powder, with a dairy-free cookie, takes the dairy out.

https://domesticsuperhero.com/cookies-and-cream-cheesecake-cupcakes