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Can you believe it’s been two years since we made these homemade survival bars? If you weren’t around for the homemade survival bar post, go ahead and check it out, I’ll wait. We checked on them last year here. Well, I had a sweet reader ask about their condition now, over two years later, so here’s the update.
The survival bricks have been in my car kits (one in each vehicle) for the majority of their lives. They are there through the horrible heat of summer and the freezing of winter. They’ve ridden to town about a hundred times and gone camping and even on our road trip vacation last summer. Heck, they’re practically part of the family now (except I don’t leave family members in the trunk).
I pulled one out to check on it and I’ll admit that after two years of bouncing around in the trunk the foil is looking a bit rough. I’ve wrapped this one in new foil. I’m actually thinking a nice Foodsaver bag would be better for it–might preserve some of the freshness.
This is the broken one, so it’s been broken for a while. It lost a few crumbs, but otherwise is still hard as a rock. Seriously amazing how hard these are. I would not make mine in a loaf shape again! Shape them in little cookies or something easier so you don’t have to break your survival brick with a rock (or a hammer if there’s one handy) when you need to eat it.
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Still looks as good as the day it was made.
I did manage to chip off a few little pieces to see how the flavor was. Kind of strong in the powdered milk flavor. I don’t remember how they tasted fresh, but maybe the powdered milk part of it isn’t handling the long life all that well? Still edible for sure, but I’m in no hurry to eat it. We’ll just keep them around and do yearly updates on their condition. For reference, however, we did use the LDS cannery non-instant powdered milk to make them which scored very low on the powdered milk taste test, so maybe it’s just that the powdered milk we used had a strong flavor to begin with. Hard to say.
Also for reference, we live in a super dry climate. I would venture to say these would not last as long in a humid environment unless they were vacuum sealed to keep the moisture out. We’ll just keep checking on them and see how the “lasts indefinitely” claim on the recipe holds up.
