Daring Bakers: Nanaimo Bars

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

Lauren stated the following: "Nanaimo Bars are a classic Canadian dessert created in none other than Nanaimo, British Colombia. In case you were wondering, it’s pronounced Nah-nye-Moh. These bars have 3 layers: a base containing graham crackers, cocoa, coconut and nuts, a middle custard layer, and a topping of chocolate. They are extremely rich and available almost everywhere across the country. I used to buy them at the grocery store before going gluten-free."Due to budgetary reasons and personal preferences, I opted to not make my graham wafers gluten-free. I did make them with regular flour, though, along with the Nanaimo Bars.

It took me three or four days to finish making the graham crackers because I prolonged the process (procrastinator am I). Nevertheless, they were pretty easy to do; there were just a lot of steps. With the exception of my last batch, which I burned due to my hot oven, the crackers came out beautifully. I was pretty proud of myself for making these crackers.

Homemade graham cracker crumbs. The burnt pieces made the crumbs look even prettier!

Nanaimo Bars: After making the graham crackers, everything moved along smoothly...until I reached the middle layer! I thought I had vanilla pudding mix, but I didn't. So, as I always do when I don't feel like going to the store, especially when the sunlight I need for my photos starts to go down, I searched for viable substitutions. I saw that cornstarch, sugar, and vanilla extract were deemed good enough depending on the recipe, so I used that, and it worked out perfectly.

The bottom layer is beautiful. Since I don't like nuts, I used extra graham cracker crumbs instead. I'm not crazy about coconut, but I used it anyway. I'm glad I did.

REFLECTION ON CHALLENGE: This is the first DB challenge dessert I've actually enjoyed eating. Sure, some of the other desserts we had to make were pretty good, but they weren't so good that I've wanted to make them again in the future. These bars made me moan with joy. I shared some with my friend, and I was later reluctant about giving them away haha. After eating them, he sent me a text message in Portuguese stating basically that they were "finger-licking good".

I'm surprised I liked them since I'm not a fan of coconut, but my favorite layers were the bottom and middle layers. I will be definitely making these again. Thanks, Lauren!! Make sure you check out what the other DBers did for this month's challenge.
Since I made a few changes to the recipe, I have posted the recipe with my modifications below. For the graham cracker recipe, visit my previous post.

Nanaimo Bars

adapted from the City of Nanaimo, BC

Bottom Layer

1/2 cup (115 g) (4 ounces) Unsalted Butter

1/4 cup (50 g) (1.8 ounces) Granulated Sugar

5 tablespoons (75 mL) Unsweetened Cocoa

1 Large Egg, Beaten

1 3/4 cups (300 mL) (160 g) (5.6 ounces) Graham Wafer Crumbs (recipe here; half that recipe)

1/2 cup (55 g) (1.9 ounces) Almonds (Any type, Finely chopped) (I used more graham cracker crumbs instead)

1 cup (130 g) (4.5 ounces) Coconut (Shredded, sweetened or unsweetened)

Melt unsalted butter, sugar and cocoa in top of a double boiler. Add egg and stir to cook and thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, nuts and coconut. Press firmly into an ungreased 8 by 8 inch pan.

Middle Layer

1/2 cup (115 g) (4 ounces) Unsalted Butter

2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons (40 mL) Heavy Cream

2 tablespoons (30 mL) Vanilla pudding mix (I didn't have so subbed cornstarch, sugar, and vanilla extract)

2 cups (254 g) (8.9 ounces) Icing Sugar

Cream butter, cream, custard powder, and icing sugar together well. Beat until light in colour. Spread over bottom layer.

Top Layer

4 ounces (115 g) Semi-sweet chocolate (I doubled the amount of chocolate)

2 tablespoons (28 g) (1 ounce) Unsalted Butter

Melt chocolate and unsalted butter over low heat. Cool. Once cool, pour over middle layer and chill.

A side view of my very lame attempt at making Canadian-Olympic-themed-Nanaimo "Bars"! haha I told you that I'm not very creative. The overhead shots were too ugly to post.