No-Bake Cheesecake Cups
Graham crumbs, a shelf-stable cream cheese layer, and berry jam, built in a cup with no oven and no cooler.
- calories
- 420
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 120
- protein
- 7 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 15 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
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Graham crackers | 9 full sheets | crush at home into coarse crumbs |
|---|---|---|
| Butter powder | 3 tbsp | binds the crumbs once wetted |
| Cream cheese powder | 3/4 cup | sold for popcorn seasoning and dehydrated meals |
| Greek yogurt powder | 1/2 cup | keeps the tang the fresh version had |
| Powdered sugar | 1/2 cup | |
| Vanilla extract | 1 tsp | or a scraping of vanilla powder |
| Cold water | about 90 ml total | split between crust and filling |
| Mixed berry jam | 6 tbsp | squeeze pouches or single-serve packets |
Method
- Stir the graham crumbs and butter powder with about 2 tbsp of cold water until the crumbs clump when pressed. Add water a teaspoon at a time; too much and it turns to paste.
- Press a spoonful of crumbs into the bottom of each cup and pack it down with the back of the spoon.
- In a separate bag or bowl, whisk the cream cheese powder, yogurt powder, and powdered sugar with the rest of the water and the vanilla. Start thick and thin it slowly. You want it to hold a ridge.
- Spoon the filling over the crust in each cup.
- Top each one with a tablespoon of jam right before you hand it out.
- Eat within a couple of hours. The crust goes soft after that.
The source version wants a cooler: fresh cream cheese, fresh yogurt, and jars kept cold until dessert. That works for one night in a car and nothing else. Swapping in cream cheese powder and Greek yogurt powder gets you the same tang and the same body from two bags of dry mix that ride in a bin all week.
Water is the whole game. The crust needs just enough to clump and the filling needs just enough to whisk smooth, and both go wrong fast if you dump it in. Add it in small amounts and stop early. Assemble at camp rather than at home, because a pressed crumb crust sitting under a wet filling for six hours is no longer a crust.
Packing
Crumbs and butter powder in one bag, the three filling powders premixed in another. Jam stays in its packets. Six lidded plastic cups nest inside each other and weigh almost nothing.
Variations
- Skip the cups and layer it straight into a quart freezer bag, one per person, and eat with a spoon.
- Freeze-dried strawberries crushed into the filling powder color it pink and add real fruit.
- A tablespoon of instant coffee in the filling turns it into something closer to tiramisu.
https://camprecipes.com/easy-camp-no-bake-cheesecake-jars