Nanaimo Bars

One of my favourite treats when I was growing up was a nanaimo bar, they were the only good thing about having to endure the painful experience of performing at the local annual piano student recital, one of the organisers made them for the tea and coffee reception afterwards.  They were also the highlight of the ferry trip to Vancouver Island, the ones on the ferry were particularly good, they were huge and the layer of yellow was super thick, my own personal brick of dizzying sweetness.

Mom never made them, maybe I was the only one who liked them so she never thought they would be appreciated.  The top was melted chocolate that was allowed to set again, that was an easy one.  I could never figure out if the base was made from, I knew it wasn't cake but what was it?  The layer of yellow was the biggest mystery, what on earth was that layer of yellow?  We didn't have a recipe for them and I wasn't adventurous enough to go looking for one outside of the cook books in our home.  But, oh, they were so good, I relished every opportunity to get my hands on one.

About five years ago, I was having a discussion about regional and national foods with a British friend and the only solid examples of original Canadian foods I could think of were poutine and nanaimo bars.  The description of poutine horrified my friend and I couldn't describe nanaimo bars much beyond chocolaty-something with a yellow layer.  Which then prompted my magpiesque curiosity to search for a recipe.  The original recipe can be found at the website for Nanaimo BC, the town for which the yummy treat was named, http://www.nanaimo.ca/EN/main/visitors/NanaimoBars.html but I have made one change to my recipe, sorry town of Nanaimo.  Since I'm not very good at the cooking an egg in liquid to make a thick binding agent type sauce without curdling/scrambling it technique, I have omitted the egg and just use extra chocolate, it's not the worst substitution one could make.


Nanaimo Bars

Bottom Layer
Melt together in a sauce pan over low heat (or in a bowl over simmering water if you're the impatient type that likes to crank the heat up but then regrets it when it backfires)
1/2 cup butter
2 squares of semi-sweet baking chocolate (that's 2 oz or 57 grams)

In another bowl, mix together
1/4 cup sugar
5 tbsp cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups graham wafer crumbs
1/2 cup ground almonds
1 cup shredded coconut (sweetened or not, your preference)

Pour the melted chocolate mixtures over the dry ingredients and stir until there are no dry crumbs left then press into a 8 inch square pan making the top as smooth as possible and chill in the fridge for an hour.

Yellow Layer
The mystery solved, make a butter-cream icing with
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 tbsp custard powder (Birds custard powder or another brand)
2 cups icing sugar
2 tbsp + 2 tsp cream or milk

Spread the bright yellow icing over base layer, again try to make the top of the layer as smooth as possible, and put back in the fridge for another hour (at this point you can go to the freezer for about 15 min if you're short of time).

Top Layer
Melt together over low heat (or again in a bowl over water)
4 squares of semi-sweet baking chocolate (that's 4 oz or 113 grams)
2 tbsp unsalted butter

Pour over the Yellow layer and spread evenly, I find it's easier to keep the pan on the counter and shimmy it quickly forwards/backwards and side-to-side to get a super slick smooth layer of chocolate on top, too much spreading and you risk denting the yellow layer or melting the butter-cream and dredging it up into the chocolate, ruining the top finish of the bars.  Then back in the fridge to set the chocolate before cutting into squares.

Cut them smaller than you think you need to, they're molar achingly sweet!