Five Calorie-packed Home-made Hill Bakes

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.

In terms of cost, nutrition, and taste, home-baked hill treats are leagues ahead of mass produced cereal bars and rubbery malt loaf, insists Fliss Freeborn. Try these easy recipes and we're sure you'll agree. 

Read more

2
 bouldery bits 21 Feb 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

The cake bars look good. 

The blog is good. 

Approved. 

Post edited at 09:22
 ripper 21 Feb 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

all sound good - and extra points for use of the very excellent word 'wazzock'.

 d_b 21 Feb 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

Now this is the sort of article I can get behind!

 jalapenotom 21 Feb 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

Brownjacks.

Take a brownie. Take a flapjack. Squidge one on top of the other. You have a brownjack. Just what a long day in the hills/your harness/the climbing wall requires. 

 George Ormerod 21 Feb 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

This is a terrible article. It’s going to add to the long list of things I’m not allowed to bake because I scoff the lot in 2 days. 

 RBonney 21 Feb 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

Nanaimo bars weren't mentioned, which is no surprise as most people haven't heard of them. But if you have a sweet tooth they're delicious.

https://fatgayvegan.com/2013/05/06/ms-cupcake-vegan-cookbook-recipes/

2
 buffalo606 21 Feb 2022

This.  Is the article, I have been waiting for.  

Thanks for handing this info to us on a plate. 

 Andy Hardy 21 Feb 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

The recipes look excellent, but I'm a bit perturbed by her attitude towards malt loaf. Possibly not as nice as homemade cakes but lavishly buttered malt loaf and cheese is a superbly tasty energy dense snackette.

As you were.

1
 clochette 21 Feb 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

This article has a good basic point that if you have the time and motivation to make your own snacks the  that's got to be good as you'll know exactly what's in them. But slagging off all bought bars and snacks is really over the top. I read this thinking maybe the homemade snacks would be healthier than shop bought but they are rammed with sugar. And if you look at what is in malt loaf it's at least as healthy as anything described here. Pretty disappointing.

25
 bouldery bits 21 Feb 2022
In reply to clochette:

In fairness, the article is titled 'Five Calorie-packed Home-made Hill Bakes' so I anticipated the bakes being calorie packed. For me, on the hill, I'm happy with some of this coming from sugars. Certainly better than my jelly baby addiction....

I wouldn't fuel a longer walk just with bars but would balance this with other energy sources aswell. I would think of these bakes as being a component of a comprehensive fuelling approach. 

1
 Moacs 22 Feb 2022
In reply to clochette:

Wow.  No posts since 2019.  This really yanked your chain, eh?

I loved it, especially the captions.

1
 johnlc 23 Feb 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

Fabulous ideas!  I used to always make flapjack until I tried it one February in The Lakes and found it had frozen.  We had to put all the pieces in my son's inside pockets and prod them periodically until we reckoned we could eat them without breaking our teeth.  We finally ate them sat in the car at the end of the day.  I therefore recently transitioned from flapjack to millionaire's shortbread which might get firm in winter but doesn't freeze.  I never thought it was possible to have a snack that actually made a flask of cheap sugary hot chocolate seem savoury.  During the summer though, I expect that millionaire's shortbread might get too slimy and gooey and make a mess of the inside of your rucksack.  The secret to making sure that the shortbread can be chopped into lumps and survive a day in the rucksack seems to be to cook the caramel for a little longer than the recipe may say, so that it is fairly firm once cooled.

 Morticia 24 Feb 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

I like the recipes and I hope the people who use walking as a form of mental therapy also enjoy them.
I am very disappointed that you purport that ‘dabbling with recreational drugs in your early 20s, ’ is a low effort high reward activity. 
A remarkably large number of young people suffer irreparable mental damage and there are the ones for whom the experience is fatal. 
Please never joke about drugs. It is such a trigger for so many people. 

14
 Alan1952 24 Feb 2022
In reply to bouldery bits:

I totally agree. Three days wild camping and completing Fisherfield 6 (well really 5) and An Teallach without home made high calorie snacks would have been not nearly so much fun.  These recipes sound excellent, and much better than some 'worthy' recipes I've tried in the past from other publications. Cold pressed flapjack with dates and coconut water - yugh......

 Fliss Freeborn 24 Feb 2022
In reply to Morticia:

Understood and taken on board for next time. X

 oatcakeman 24 Feb 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

I agree with clochette above.

The amount of sugar in these recipes is far from healthy, or energy giving.

Processed sugar found in many store bought "healthy" snacks is just empty calories. You might get a sugar rush for 10 minutes then you get an energy crash. Things like Malt Loaf & Custard are great as desserts in the tent or a bothy but they have no place on the hill, unfortunately neither do any of these tasty treats.

Far better hill food has a slow release of complex carbohydrates to keep your energy levels consistent without any slumps, things such as sugar-free granola bars which have a high content of oats are ideal.

My personal favourite hill snack food is oatcakes and cheese in a ziplock bag, which keeps everything dry right down to the last crumb.

There are also plenty of times when I've eaten raw medium oatmeal which is excellent hill food being an unadulterated complex carbohydrate. One mouthful of oatmeal mixed with a mouthful or two of water has kept me going more than a few times when it was too wet or windy to enjoy that instagram moment with a pretty mountain top background. Having sugary treats to look forward to at the end of the day are nice, but leave them out of your rucksack.

26
 ebdon 24 Feb 2022
In reply to oatcakeman:

Christ that sounds a pretty depressing diet. I actually shed a tear at the mere thought of it after reading. 

2
 dr_botnik 24 Feb 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

Just made the apple cake in preparation for this weekend. Unfortunately, I don't think it will last that long, it's just too tasty! Thanks for the article, really enjoyed reading it and trying the recipes.

 GrahamD 24 Feb 2022
In reply to oatcakeman:

When I first fell in love with hill walking, we inexplicably got by with Kendal mint cake and Mars bars.  Nary an oat in sight.

1
 Moacs 24 Feb 2022
In reply to oatcakeman:

How's the woad working out?

1
 Robert Durran 24 Feb 2022
In reply to oatcakeman:

So we have two "sleeper" posters waiting a decade or more to express alarm at the amount of sugar in home made hill snacks. Scary times. 

1
 Hans 25 Feb 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

This was one of the best articles I've read on UKC in a very long time - useful and very funny which is a rare combo. I can empathise with much of it, and the photo captions are fantastic. Great work Fliss - and I'm sure that whoever reads it will use it in their own way as is appropriate. You can't write an article to please everyone, and nor should you try! Looking forward to more of your articles on here.

1
 Fliss Freeborn 25 Feb 2022

Awh bless you - thanks so much!

I am still trying to think of an appropriate response to Mr Mouth-Porridge but maybe I should take your comment on board and not worry about it all too much. I'm so glad you're enjoying my work. X 

1
 Spike 25 Feb 2022
In reply to oatcakeman:

I too like savoury mostly, although not quite as sackcloth and ashes as dried oatmeal. But I also take some sugary stuff.

I've been told about this sugar rush and subsequent crash but never experienced it, there also seem to be quite a few articles on nutrition which challenge the concept of sugar rush/crash so unless you are diabetic I think a mix of sugar rich (maybe natural sugar too) and savoury makes a good overall mix of things to take

 fimm 17 Apr 2022
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

Are the over temperatures in this fan, or non-fan? Really, you should give both. This might explain why my Apple Cake, although tasty, was way too sticky to take anywhere...

3
In reply to fimm:

> Are the over temperatures in this fan, or non-fan? Really, you should give both.

I'm sure your fan oven instructions give rough conversions between fan and non-fan temperatures.

 tehmarks 18 Apr 2022
In reply to Morticia:

> A remarkably large number of young people suffer irreparable mental damage and there are the ones for whom the experience is fatal.

It's usually fatal as a direct consequence of our outdated attitudes towards drugs. Kids don't generally die from, for example, taking MDMA - but they do regularly come to serious harm for example taking PMMA that was sold to them as MDMA. They come to serious harm snorting fentanyl-laced coke. They also often come to serious harm from drinking to excess - which is perfectly legal.

> Please never joke about drugs. It is such a trigger for so many people.

And the reason why misinformation is rife, misunderstanding is rife, and harm is far more common than it needs to be. Society needs to have a more open dialogue about recreational drug use. We all know it happens far more commonly than people want to recognise - stifling discussion (including joking) about it only serves to cause more harm.


New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Loading Notifications...