Article: 'Survival' Cake

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Ahjno

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Admin
Aug 9, 2004
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Rotterdam (NL)
www.bushcraftuk.com
Couldn't find the pics in my Photobucket :(

Step by step recipe: http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3879&p=51269#post51269

“Survival” cake (recipe)

Total: energy 31600 kJ, fat 38%, carbohydrates 55%, proteins 6.3%

Ingredients:
- 100 gr sugar
- 200 ml oil (sunflower)
- 100 gr honey
- 200 ml milk
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 50 gr dried vigs
- 100 gr dried abricots
- 100 gr buckwheat flour
- 500 gr plain flour
- 300 gr rye flour
- 100 gr cocount
- 100 gr almonds

• Heat up the sugar, honey, oil, salt and milk in a large pan.
• Chop up the abricots and vigs.
• Mix the dried fruits with all the other ingredients, and give it a good knead
• The “dough” texture you get should be very dry.
• Put everything in a greased baking tin.
• Bake the cake in a oven on 180 degrees celsius, in about 1 hour.

• 1/10th of this cake equals a main meal.
• Drink plenty of water with it!
• If you pack it well (in plastic) it’ll be good for weeks.

Making the cake:

• Heat up the sugar, honey, oil, salt and milk in a large pan.
- I used a large transparent bowl and heated it all up in the microwave for about 2 minutes on 750 Watt.
First I did the oil in the bowl, then the milk (looks cool, as these two liquids don’t mix), sugar and salt.

<picture 1>

In this picture you see a few of the used ingredients: in the transparent bowl: oil, milk, sugar and salt. On the right of the bowl a white package: cocount (cocos flour), a magazine on the far right: baking instructions in dutch. Above the cocount: buckwheat flour and rye flour. Top: sunflower oil, dried apple and abricots, jar with honey and a plastic package with almonds. Not in this picture: plain flour.

&#8226; Chop up the abricots and vigs.
- I chopped up the almonds as well, but this is my personal taste.
- Instead of the vigs I used dried apple (I increased it to the same amount of abricots: 100 grams), because I don&#8217;t like vigs and the store I went to didn&#8217;t stock them.
- For chopping up the abricots, apple and almonds (all done separately), I used a blender.

&#8226; Mix the dried fruits with all the other ingredients, and give it a good knead.
- I mixed the chopped up dried fruits and almonds with the above mentioned heated ingredients and gave it a good stir.
- After done this all the flours were weighed / measured in a separate bowl and were given a good stir, to make sure they were well mixed.
- After mixing the flours I did it into the transparent bowl. Make sure not to put all the flour in the bowl in one time, this is almost impossible to stir / knead it well. I divided the flour in 4 equal parts and then mixed it with the other ingredients, already in the transparent bowl. When 1 part of flour got mixed well in the bowl with the other ingredients I added another part.
- When you&#8217;ve mixed the first part of flour trough the oil, milk and dried fruit &#8220;dough&#8221; you&#8217;ll know you&#8217;ve done it the right way if it looks really disgusting.
- I found out by using a transparent bowl you&#8217;ll be able to see (via) the bottom and check if all ingredients are well mixed. Check for any white spots / stains, these parts need a bit more kneading.

&#8226; The &#8220;dough&#8221; texture you get should be very dry.
- Kneeding the dough, equals 2 days of fitness in the gym.

<picture 2>

In this picture (sorry for the bad quality, it&#8217;s not very sharp) you&#8217;ll see the dry dough. Notice that it became some sort of a crumble dough.

&#8226; Put everything in a greased baking tin.
- The tin I used was rectangular (lots easier to make nice slices) in shape, and measured: 30cm (long) x 13cm (wide) x 8.5cm (high).

&#8226; Bake the cake in a oven on 180 degrees celsius, in about 1 hour.
- I baked my cake in 50 minutes (180 degrees celsius).

<picture 3>

Surprisingly all the dough fitted into the tin, at first I wasn&#8217;t quite sure if it would &#8230; But by giving it a good bash it all fitted very nicely.

<picture 4>

The result of my baking adventure, it weighs a massive 1.8 kg (!!!) &#8211; the same weight as my Ajungilak Kompakt 215cm (3 season) sleeping bag.

<picture 5>

A look at the inside &#8230;(once again a poor quality picture &#8230;), clearly visible are the pieces of dried apple.


And the taste?
It tastes almost like nothing, but the apple and almond in it are noticeable &#8230; but there is not quite a specific taste on it &#8230; The first bit I ate, made me think of wet cardboard &#8211; the smell (not that I ever ate wet cardboard) &#8230; And it&#8217;s dry, very dry &#8230; so make sure you&#8217;ve got a nice cup of tea along with it.

The texture is reasonable solid and a slice of cake won&#8217;t fall apart &#8211; but it&#8217;ll break when handled &#8220;roughly&#8221;: so no chance of getting it out of your smock pocket without finding it in pieces. But this will make eating it lots easier though.
Adding honey on it will make it more palatable (and will increase the food value).
 

robin wood

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Oct 29, 2007
3,054
1
derbyshire
www.robin-wood.co.uk
The problem with this recipe is I suspect it tastes rather good and therefore would be eated long before you get into a survival situation. I met a guy one time who had done a lot of serious expeditions in very harsh environments who carried a tin of catfood. When you need it it contains everything you need and you won't eat it until you need it.
 

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