Tramping Biscuits
Once upon a time, before the days of muesli bars and plastic bags, trampers used to carry snacks of dried fruit, nuts, chocolate, etc., in brown plastic packets. Innovative people tried melting chocolate to glue other items together to form a biscuit.
Trampers tried new improved recipies and for a number of years the club ran a competition to find the best tramping biscuit.
Entries were subjected to a series of tests to see how they would stand up to the average tramping trip. -:
- Drop test In case your pack fell off a cliff.
- Crush test In case a rock fell on it.
- Soak test In case your pack got dropped in the river.
- Vibration test In case your pack rolled down a shingle scree.
- Edibilty test To test if the biscuit could actually be eaten.
- Taste test Which tasted best after passing all the other tests.
Food manufacturers have now caught up with demand and produce wrapped muesli bars so the need for home made ones has dropped.
The clubs last biscuit competition was held in September 2000.
In case you would still like to try making your own, here is Rod Spurr’s winning recipie from that competition.
1 cup rolled oats 1 cup sugar
2/3 cup Woolworths track and trail mix 3/4 cup coconut
1 heaped tbsp raisins 150g butter
1 heaped tbsp chocolate chips 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup flour 1 tbsp boiling water
2 generous tbst Bush Honey or Golden SyrupSlowly melt the butter and honey together. Combine oats, trail mix, raisins, flour, sugar and coconut. Dissolve soda in the boiling water and add to melted butter and honey then add chocolate. Mix all indredients together and press into 20 x 30 cm slice tray. Bake for 15 minutes at 150 degrees C. Cool and eat.
Author: unknown