My First White Pot Bread Pudding: Camp Cooking at Highbanks Lake

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I just made this whitepot style bread pudding. By my back-of-the-napkin calculations the pudding was about 800 calories and weighed around 8 ounces. It was delicious and I felt full throughout our 8-mile trail maintenance session.

--June 14 2019 at 08:44. Bitely, MI, United States

I don’t know if I would ever make this on a backpacking trip, certainly not a really long one, but sometimes a treat is worth the effort in time and weight. Bread puddings have been around for centuries (though I’m not sure why they’re called puddings). I ran across this simple one browsing video about historical foods thinking centuries-old foods for travel and/or poor people might be good for backpacking foods too. This dish has its roots in southwest England and I suppose is called a “white pot” because you use white bread. If I had spice lije cinnamon or nutmeg I’d have used it but the brown sugar and raisin made it sweet and tasty.

Here is the video of me making the White Pot. 

Ingredients

• 3 eggs (dehydrated egg equivalent like OvaEasy will work)
• 2 slices challah or other white bread
• 1.5 ounces dry whole milk
• about 3 ounces raisins
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar
• 1 packet olive oil (about 2 tsp/9g)
• about 11 ounces water

Amounts are approximate for everything except the bread and eggs. Calories in this meal are well over 800 calories assuming my numbers for brown sugar and raisin are close to accurate. I-suppose if I used powdered eggs the net weight of the meal is a about 8 ounces though it didn’t feel that heavy. I used a 6x4x3-inch baking pan.

1. Oil your baking dish
2. Slice your bread into small cubes. Recipes suggest about an inch in size but I wasn’t too precise. Recipes also suggest removing the crusts but I didn’t bother.
3. Crack your eggs into a bowl and whisk until well mixed.
4. Add the brown sugar and milk (including water if using milk powder) to the eggs and mix well. You’ll have to mix now and then to keep the sugar from settling. (Note: I actually started with more liquid mix but didn’t use it all hence my guess on required water. I’d not be surprised if 10 ounces was enough.)
5. Cover your baking dish in a single layer of bread.
6. Pour the egg micture over the bread sufficiently to cover the bread.
7. Tamp down a bit just to keep things to ght.
8. Add half the raisins.
9. Make a second layer of bread cubes.
10. Cover with the remaining egg mix.
11. Top with the remaining raisins.
12. Tamp it all down a bit to ensure the whole thing has a bit of room to grow.
13. I baked mine in a dry-bake setup on a canister stove set to a very low burn for 15-20 minutes. To make a basic oven you need a pot you can place the baking dish in and cover. I used an 8-inch GSI Pinnacle Skillet and heavy aluminum pie plate as a cover. It ended up overflowing a bit but was easy to clean. It turned well and proved filling. We had about 8 miles of hiking ahead of us. We had trail maintenance to do. This time the maintenance was surprisingly light; fewer than 10 blowdowns to deal with. I felt no need for snacks or food until dinner. Granted after the 4 hours of hiking and trail work our afternoon was spent lounging in camp but dinner wasn’t until about 6:00PM.

Video that my meal is based on by James TownsendandThis white pot video.

making the White Pot. making the White Pot. me making the White Pot.of me making the White Pot.