Logan Bread Recipe
Logan bread is a dense quick bread full of dried fruits and nuts. Named after Mount Logan in the Yukon, Logan Bread's delicious taste, high calorie content, indestructibility, and non-perishability make it an ideal long distance backpacking food.
I first leaned about Logan Bread a month ago from my friend John on a section hike of the Long Trail that we did together. I've taken the recipe he sent me and made a few modifications to make it less flaky and better able to withstand the rigors of my food bag.
Logan Bread
1.5 cups of whole wheat flour
1.5 cups rye flour
1 cup quick oats
1 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup powdered milk
1/4 cup brown sugar
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water
1 cup canola oil
1/2 cup wild flower honey
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 dried cherries, chopped
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1/2 cup dried cranberries
4 eggs
Instructions
Preheat oven to 275 degrees.
Mix all of the grains, powdered milk, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
Next, mix all of the other ingredients in a separate bowl and set aside.
Grease two 9" x 9" pans using Crisco. Then sprinkle extra flour onto pan bottoms and sides. This will show you if you've missed greasing any spots and will help with removing the bread from the pans when finished baking.
Mix the ingredients of the two bowls and mix very thoroughly.
Spoon the mixture into the two greased pans evenly.
Bake for 90 minutes at 275 degrees or until a tester comes out clean.
Let cool. Carve Logan Bread into 3" x 3" squares and store in plastic ziplocs for eating on a backpacking trip or at the office.
It doesn’t look to appetizing, but it sounds pretty useful. I think I might give this a try. Thanks for the recipe.
I’ve taken it with me on 3 section hikes so far this summer and consider it to be a trail essential. It is amazingly filling and sustaining on days where you are hiking hard miles.
Does this Logan bread freeze well?
Sure, it’s just a dense quick bread, like banana bread, but a lot thicker and heavier.
Love this stuff. ever since I found this recipe on this site, I’ve made it 3 times and taken it on numerous hikes. much better and cheaper than powerbars and just about as good.
Three times! That’s music to my ears.
I hate to post a second time but I thought this was a great second use of logan bread. on a recent trip I had a few “bricks” of logan bread with me that I had probably added a bit to much oatmeal to and not enough water. Anyways we had some powdered milk with so I thought I’d try and make some cereal out of my logan bread bricks. I broke them apart and poured on my milk concoction, I must say this is one of the best “cereals” I have ever tasted. I plan on using logan bread in this way on future hikes with maybe a slight change in the recipe for more of a crunchy texture instead of a mushy one. But in a pinch logan bread makes great cereal.
Valgard – Keep the comments coming. I’m really glad you like this quick bread. I’ve also tried a few variants on the recipe including one batch with macadamia nuts and ginger. Whenever I eat logan bread, I always think about Lembahs (spelling?) the super bread that the elves gave Bilbo in The Hobbit.
This very receipe is now sitting in my Oven…
I couldn’t find the Cranberries here without them being in another bag of Trail Mix, but I did find blueberries.
The batch strained my Kitchen Aid mixer and had me worried for a few seconds until I switched to the Bread Hook which I should have done shortly after the mixing segement was done…Tough Dough, and Heavy,,and sticky…I know I did not even come close to getting the Dough mix evenly divided between the two pans so one will be done before the other…I hope it tastes as good as my kitchen is smelling,,,56 minutes to go! Oh for those who might not know..Look for the Whole Wheat and Rye Flour in the “Gourmet” section of the Store..I went to three stores til I asked a little old lady and she took me right over to the section and there they were…Old folks have so much to share,,,,if you let them,,,they generall steer you right!
Hey’s it pretty good!!! Tasty with a nice sweet aftertaste..I think the next time I will not chop up the nuts and fruit so fine to leave a bit more crunch to it…It’s funny stuff it chew dry, but leaves the mouth wet…This will go good with my morning cup of Hot Chocolate and my afternoon cup of Tea!
Thanks for sharing!
I’ve made this many times and it usually comes out great, especially if you use darker berries. Once I made it with macmdemia nuts and ginger and that didn’t work so good. Stick to cherries, blueberries or cranberries and you’ll be fine. Glad you found this old treasure.
I bet this would be good with a yogurt coating poured over it. Hmmm… more stuff to add to my grocery shopping list.
Hi
I’m french and met a young American trekker in the Alps two years ago. He’s used to trek alone on very long distance trails.
He offered me this logan bread I appreciate very much and I instantly said to him the very same words as Earlylite (february 2009) : “This remind me of lembas of the elves”.
Thanks for the recipe.
Great story.
What is the calorie break down per bar/slice? How long does it store? It looks really good. I am going to give it a go this week.
So, I was out camping recently with 5 others. We had a good amount of food with us, as we were to be out for 10 days or so.
Unfortunately, on day 6, a black bear got into our food. He ate half a granola, munched on some trail mix and proceeded to sample a good amount of our foods. However, one of the two things he completed devoured was the remainder of our Logan Bread.
This recipe is BEAR APPROVED.
Ok Matt,,,where is the receipe?
Made some earlier tonight, using dried pineapple and cranberry, and pecans in place of walnuts. GOOD STUFF. I pulled a Pippen, and ate about 4 pieces of it :O
Can’t wait to take some out in the pack, its very dense, smells and tastes great, and is nice and filling.
Cake makes an excellent breakfast or snack. I’m glad you discovered this recipe and made a variant. I ate a lot of ginger cake when hiking in Scotland. Keeps well in a food bag.
I decided to make up this recipe and try it out. I also made a spreadsheet to try to figure the calories. As best as I can tell from my web search and math (neither of which is guaranteed to be accurate), the total recipe as shown would have the following nutritional values:
Calories: 7182
Calories from fat: 2755
Total Fat grams: 310
Saturated Fat grams: 30.4
Polyunsaturated Fat grams: 39.3
Mono-unsaturated Fat grams: 158.6
Cholesterol grams: 840
Sodium milligrams: 5065
Carbohydrate grams: 1991
Dietary Fiber grams: 97.8
Sugar grams: 357.3
Protein grams: 123.7
David – this is totally awesome. I always wondered about the caloric value.
Have you read “pillars of the Earth?. In it there is a high protien bread with beans, nuts etc. I have been looking for a recipe for years. Anyone? Kind of like Ezekiel bread but with more stuff. I will make the above Logan bread as well. Sounds yum.
I’m giving this a try — might try including Wolfberries (Goji) in there too. Thanks!