Oatmeal Cake Bars
A pan cake reworked into a dense oat bar you bake in a dutch oven and carry in foil.
- calories
- 390
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 111
- protein
- 6 g
- serves
- 12, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 35 min
- total time
- 50 min
- water
- 300 ml boiled
- 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
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Backpacking
- Vegetarian
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Old fashioned rolled oats | 1 1/4 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Butter | 1/2 cup | cultured or canned butter holds without a cooler |
| Boiling water | 1 1/4 cups | |
| Powdered whole egg | 3 tbsp plus 6 tbsp water | equals 2 eggs |
| Light brown sugar | 1 cup | |
| Granulated sugar | 1 cup | |
| All purpose flour | 1 1/3 cups | |
| Ground cinnamon | 1 tsp | |
| Baking soda | 1 tsp | |
| Ground nutmeg | 1/4 tsp | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Sweetened shredded coconut | 1 cup | for the topping |
| Evaporated milk | 1/3 cup | canned, shelf-stable until opened |
| Chopped walnuts or almonds | 1/2 cup | leave out and the bars still work |
| Vanilla extract | 1 tsp |
Method
- Put the oats and half the butter in your mixing pot. Pour 300 ml of boiling water over them and leave it alone for ten minutes while you build the fire down to coals.
- Whisk the egg powder with its water, then beat in both sugars until the grit is gone.
- Stir the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg, and salt together, then work them into the sugar mixture. Add the soaked oats last and stir until it is one batter.
- Line a 10-inch dutch oven with foil, grease it, and pour in the batter. Lid on. Bake with about 8 coals underneath and 16 on the lid for roughly 35 minutes, until a twig comes out clean.
- While it bakes, melt the rest of the butter and mix it with the coconut, evaporated milk, nuts, and vanilla.
- Spread the topping over the hot cake, put the lid back on with coals only on top, and give it 3 or 4 minutes until the coconut browns. Watch it. It goes from gold to black fast.
- Let it cool in the oven before you cut it, or it falls apart.
This started as a kitchen sheet cake and the only real trail problem was the fresh dairy and eggs. Powdered egg replaces the eggs one for one, and canned evaporated milk does the topping’s job better than fresh milk would since it is already concentrated. Butter is fine unrefrigerated for a few days in cool weather; in heat, use a canned or ghee substitute.
The oats soaking in boiling water is the step that matters. It softens them and holds moisture in the crumb, which is why the bars survive being wrapped in foil and shoved into a pack for days. The broiled coconut topping is done on the lid with coals on top only, which is as close as a dutch oven gets to a broiler.
Packing
Combine flour, sugars, spices, soda, salt, and egg powder in one zip bag at home and label the water amount on it. Oats in a second bag, topping ingredients in a third. Butter and the evaporated milk can travel in the bear can until the night you bake.
Variations
- Bake it at home, cut it into bars, and wrap each one in foil. It keeps three or four days on the trail and needs no stove.
- No dutch oven: bake in a foil pan set on a grill grate over low coals with a foil tent over the top.
- Skip the nuts and add another half cup of coconut for a nut-free version.
https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/grandmas-oatmeal-cake