Tried and Tested Cave Food Recipes

User Sungura over at Cavechat.org posted a couple of her favorite cave food recipes recently.

Took me a few tries to get these, lab tested them by tossing them off my balcony, field tested in various caves at Speleofest this weekend, including by various folks, they were well enjoyed both for flavour and how well they held up in cavepack which was the point so I think they are good to go!

Cave Mosh Bars

First, mix together your dry ingredients:

• 1 cup vanilla almond granola
• 1 bag of Tripletreat Fruit (dried mango, cranberry, and blueberry)
• 3/4 cup of mini Reese’s peanut butter cups
• 1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup of crushed banana chips
• 3/4 cup of sunflower seeds (roasted, unsalted)
• 3/4 cup of walnuts
• 3 cups of whole wheat flour
• 10 shakes of cinnamon

Then add in the wet ingredients:

• 1 cup of natural peanut butter
• 1/2 cup of chocolate peanut butter
• 1/2 cup of honey
• 3 eggs (beat before adding)
• 1 can of sweetened condensed milk

Mix up well it makes a very sticky mixture and takes some muscle to mix with how thick it is. Press it down into a 43.8cm x 29.2cm x 2.54cm deep cookie sheet, it should fit about perfectly, mush/press it together if stuff is dryer and not sticky you didn’t get it mixed well enough.

Bake at 350F for 15-17min

Let cool for 5-10min, but cut while still a bit warm and let it finish cooling on racks. I wrapped mine individual in saran wrap.

Kave Krossants

Prep:

• Slice up carrots into about 1cm x 1cm (small bite size) pieces
• Slice up potatoes (I like the Yukon Gold for this) into 1cm x 1cm/small bite size pieces
• Slice up some stew beef as well, I left those chunks larger though but same bite size idea
• Roll out a 10 inch diameter circle of whole wheat pizza dough to about a 0.5cm thickness

Create:

1. On half of the pizzadough circle (all of this is built on the same halfcircle side), put about 5-8 carrot pieces (depends on how big the circle is and how big you sliced them)
2. Sprinkle on about a tablespoon of light brown sugar.
3. Lay on 5-8 potato pieces.
4. Add 5-8 bits of beef.
5. Sprinkle onto the beef seasoning to taste.
6. Fold over the empty half of the pizza dough and pinch the edges together well, pocketing everything inside of it.
7. Put three 2-3cm slits in the top for ventilation while cooking.
8. Put down some aluminium foil on a cookie sheet (it tends to potty a bit while cooking) and bake at 450F for 10 minutes, then drop the temp to 250F and bake for another 25-30 minutes.

Once out of the oven, wrap up in aluminum foil, it will stay hot/warm for a good 6 hours so you can have a hot meal in-cave. They can be re-heated if you make them ahead of time but they don’t hold heat as well, only more like 2-3 hrs, for a re-heat. They are good at room temp (aka “cold”) though too.

If anyone else has some good cave food suggestions, make sure to post them in the comments!

Cave Food Recipes [Cavechat.org]