"Survival" cake

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When my brother was in the Air Cadets, He went to Snowdonia. In his rucksack was one of my Mums home-made fruit cakes and a half pound block of Cheddar.

When he got to where they were supposed to be going up Mount Snowdon, he split the fruit cake and the cheese with some of the others with him, apparently it tasted better than he could ever remember.

If I can find the photo I will try and post it.

On the subject of ales, nothing beats a pint of Goffs Jouster Ale, but then I'm biased as I work next to the brewery.
 
tomtom said:
stuff always tastes better when your cold and hungry,
i dont like trail mix when im not on the trail when i am i cant get enough of the stuff! :1244:
I feel the same way. :biggthump
 
When I was in the army and went through basic training it was considered very bad form not to have at least one Malt Loaf in the bottom of your bergan and in fact our DS (directing staff) often popped up and demanded to see that we had them, failure to produce at least one meant 50 press ups and that next time we saw that NCO we had to pay them 1 maltloaf as well as carrying our own as a fine!
I don't really like maltloaf but apparently that's not the point, the point is that they are very high energy and can keep you going and going for ages...I did find they taste better with a little butter but that's only useful in the winter as it has a habit of melting all over the inside of your bergan in the summer!
I think the "Tate and Lyle" one was the favourite.
 
Bingo.....lol...it was Soreen not tate and lyle!

Blimey, I'm going to have to go and buy some now....I remember not being a big fan but for reasons best known to phyciatrists my mouth is now watering! :o):
 
Quill said:
Might inquire as to the contents of a malt loaf? :?:

Ahh, one that doesnt translate accross the Atlantic eh? Well, it's kind of a cross between a malty bread and a sticky fruit cake. Dark brown coloured, lots of erm, malt and plums, oh yes it has plums in it - raisins too I think. It's soft, squidgy and it sticks to your teeth, very heavy for a bread, loads of carbs. But it's not cake exactly, more bready than a cake. It hits your stomach like a lump of lead - you know when you've had a slice. It doesnt seem to go off or stale either, seems to keep for years.

I'm thinking this doesnt help much. :lol:

original_pic.jpg


See...

http://www.soreen.com/original_malt_loaf.asp

as an aside, my cat likes it- wierdest damned thing, but she will eat just a little with entheusiasm - very strange - she looks at everything else like it's poisoned. :?:
 
“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 cocos flour
- 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 rigtht: 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.

• 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’t like vigs and the store I went to didn’t stock them.
- For chopping up the abricots, apple and almonds (all done separately), I used a blender.

• 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’ve mixed the first part of flour trough the oil, milk and dried fruit “dough” you’ll know you’ve done it the right way if it looks really disgusting.
- I found out by using a transparent bowl you’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.

• The “dough” 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’s not very sharp) you’ll see the dry dough. Notice that it became some sort of a crumble dough.

• 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).

• 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’t quite sure if it would … 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 (!!!) – the same weight as my Ajungilak Kompakt 215cm (3 season) sleeping bag.

<picture 5>

A look at the inside …(once again a poor quality picture …), 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 … but there is not quite a specific taste on it … The first bit I ate, made me think of wet cardboard – the smell (not that I ever ate wet cardboard) … And it’s dry, very dry … so make sure you’ve got a nice cup of tea along with it.

The texture is reasonable solid and a slice of cake won’t fall apart – but it’ll break when handled “roughly”: 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).

And as mentioned in other replies (above) - you'll eat it when you're cold, wet and hungry :roll:


EDIT (2): removed crappy quality pictures.
 
Just to jump the gun a bit :-), here's my Mum's recipe for what she calls 'tea bread' - that is a fruit loaf which keeps for ages, and is very filling!

Tea Bread

1 large cup tea
400g mixed fruit (raisins, sultanas, tropical fruit etc)
100g brown sugar
2 heaped tsp mixed spice
225g Self-Raising Flour
1 Egg

Place the fruit, sugar, spices and tea in a bowl and leave overnight to soak. The next day, add the flour and the egg to the fruit mixture, mix well, and pour into a bread tin. Bake at 150 degC for 1.5 hours.

Excellent food when out in the woods!
 
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