Pound Cake for breakfast

[Nick Badyrka]

Last month, my wife and I brought slices of homemade pound cake wrapped up in plastic wrap for the first four days of a two week hike. It was the best for breakfast and lasted great even though it was hot on days 3 and 4. After we got home she baked another pound cake and we set aside a few slices to see how long it would last. It still is hanging in after almost three weeks, no mold, perhaps a little stale.
We are starting to think about a month long section hike next summer and started wondering if one of those vacuum bag systems would help the pound cake stay fresh for a few weeks so we could send one in a resupply box.
Has anyone tried those vacuum bag machines for backpacking?

[todd]

No experience packing it, but mmmmmmMMM!

[Mary D]

Pound cake sounds great, especially if made from the old recipe (pound of butter, pound of flour, pound of eggs, pound of sugar) as opposed to the wimpy substitute sold in stores. Here's another idea to consider, especially with December only three months away.

Consider the much-maligned Christmas fruit cake. It has lots of eggs (protein), nuts (protein, fiber and healthy fats), butter (unhealthy fat, but you are, after all, hiking all day), fruit (carbs and fiber), flour (carbs) and the inevitable sugar. Many of us get too much of it as presents from somebody or other, and a lot of it gets tossed the day after Christmas if not sooner.

Instead of tossing the leftover fruit cake, why not slice it and freeze it to use for backpacking trips? Wrapping it in cheesecloth soaked with whiskey/rum/other alcoholic beverage makes it keep a lot longer and taste a lot better. However, if you do that you might want to have the fruit cake for dinner instead of breakfast!

[Bob Gross]

"Consider the much-maligned Christmas fruit cake."

And then the brother to that is Logan Bread. It keeps for months in a ziploc bag. No eggs or yeast.

–B.G.–

[Nick Badyrka]

Her pound cake is an old, but modified recipe, she adds a lot lemon which also help it keep longer. It is delicious! But, my question is will the vacuum bagging help it stay fresh longer. Anybody use the vacuum bag system? Hiking is a great excuse to have cake for breakfast.

[Laurie Gibson]

Nick, you might check out Chef Glenn's method of packing daily rations in vacuum-sealed bags:

http://www.backpackingchef.com/vacuum-seal-bags.html

[Nick Badyrka]

Thanks for the link!

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Fruitcake done the traditional way – where it is basted for 30 days with booze has a shelf life of a very, very long time. And you don't need to take booze with you – the bread reeks of it ;-)
Honestly, if made with real dried fruit and berries and not that nasty dyed stuff, it is quite good.

[Laurie Gibson]

Also, this thread discusses vacuum sealing:

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=20951

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