The Backcountry Cookie Recipe You Can Take Anywhere

By Molly Herber

Dec 11, 2015

Cookie dough
Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Cookies are delicious, and any time is the perfect time to eat them.

Here’s a cookie recipe we make when we're camping that’s easy to master and easy to make your own.

Basic Backcountry Cookies

Ingredients

  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • ¼ cup butter
  • ¼ cup powdered milk (regular, soy, coconut, or Nido)
  • 3 Tbs. water
  • ¾ cup baking mix* (4 cups flour, 2 ½ Tbs. baking powder, ¼ cup powdered milk, 2 tsp. salt)*(We recommend mixing this ahead of time!)
  • ½ cup white flour
  • ⅛ tsp. salt

Directions

  1. Cream sugar and butter together.
  2. Mix milk powder and water and add to sugar-butter mixture
  3. Combine flour, salt, and baking mix and add to other ingredients, working it into a stiff dough
  4. Divide into nine pieces
  5. Flatten and bake for about 10 minutes, using a twiggy fire

Makes nine 3-inch cookies or one GIANT cookie.

Variations

  • Add a mixture of 1 ½ Tbs. brown sugar and ½ tsp. cinnamon over the cookies before baking
  • Mix ½ cup of a mixutre of fruit, nuts, and seeds into the dough before baking
  • Omit the salt and add 4 Tbs. peanut butter, 2Tbs. more flour, and ¼ cup chopped peanuts
  • Replace powdered milk with ½ cup cocoa and 4 Tbs. water

(Read about twiggy fires and other backcountry baking techniques here.)

Happy munching!

A Delicious Backcountry Cookie
A delicious backcountry cookie. Photo by Tracy Baynes.

Recipe courtesy of the NOLS Cookery.

Written By

Molly Herber

Molly is a NOLS instructor and writer. She loves the smell of her backpack and does her best writing before 7:00 am. When she's not scouting the next post for the NOLS Blog, she's running and climbing on rocks in Wyoming. Follow her on Instagram @mgherber

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