Thursday, December 24, 2009
Nanaimo Bars
A standard dessert that all my Canadian friends whip up in no time is Nanaimo bars. The first time I saw them, I wasn't interested but when they kept turning in up at every function, I tried one. Now they are one of my favorite bars - though way too rich for more than one at an event! Gail gave me the recipe and I decided to give them a try since I have free time now that I am on break. It's a three step process:
1. make the bottom layer. It's cocoa, coconut, butter, nuts and graham crackers. You melt and mix the butter and cocoa. Then you mix in the other ingredients and press it into a small cake pan. Pretty simple - no problems with this one. Though I did have to call Gail so make sure the goop that I had after cooking the butter and cocoa was right. It looked to watery for what I had to do with it. She assured me it was fine and to keep going.
2. make the middle layer which uses the British or Canadian ingredient custard powder. Gail found some in a store here once and gave me a can for my birthday. She says vanilla pudding powder works just as well.
The custard layer is butter, custard powder, powdered sugar and milk. When it is all whipped together, you spread it on the graham cracker crust. Pretty simple - no problems with this one either.
3. make the top layer - this is basically melted chocolate with some butter in it (there is a LOT of butter int this!). As you can seen this was a disaster. I cooked the chocolate too long. I was supposed to just barely melt it but it seemed to have chunks in it so I kept it on the heat. Then all of a sudden it got very thick. It wouldn't spread when I poured it into the pan. So I had a mess. I haven't passed my Canadian culture test and will have to try again in the future.
