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Nanaimo Bars with Graham Crackers

January 27, 2010 by Sarah Trivuncic 46 Comments

Bitesize Nanaimo bars cut into chunks and speared with cocktail sticks on a light blue plate.
The end of January marks my first outing with the Daring Bakers. I am proud to have added the Daring Kitchen badge to my side bar today and hope it this month’s challenge will be the first of very many.
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

 

Nanaimo bars were totally new to me, I have never been to Canada, have never seen them for sale in the UK and had never previously seen them online or heard anyone talk about them. So I was very pleased that my first challenge was truly something that I would never have made by myself.
 
Graham Crackers, of which I have heard, but never eaten, are one of the ingredients of these Nanaimo bars. Grahams probably are sold in a few places in London but again I’ve never seen them so it was to be a new experience to me to make these.
 
I was delighted by all the variations of these bars shown in the Daring Baker’s forum which will shortly be available for non-Daring Bakers to see on their site
 
I found the crackers and bars quite straight forward to make. Something I liked about this recipe was that there were various stages where you could take a break and do the next bit the next day or next week in my case! I made my crackers at the beginning of January but didn’t finish the bars until last week. I did my bottom layer first and then the middle and top layers the following day.

 

We were allowed to use wheat flour if we couldn’t obtain all the gluten free ingredients and I opted to do this since I could not find sorghum.  One disappointment I had with the crackers was that they seemed to spread out a lot in the oven. The pretty pin pricks on other people’s crackers were disappearing on mine. I also halved the recipe because I didn’t want loads of crackers left and I knew that a half amount would be plenty to make the bars. This is why I don’t have many pictures of my crackers because I’d already ground most of them up into crumbs!
 
To present my bars, I chose to cut them into smaller cubes and spear with cocktail sticks. The bars are very sweet and I could only handle small quantities in one go. The tiny bits I tasted were very nice and have been one of the many things to tempt me this week whilst I am still steadfastly sticking to Ten in 10, the healthy goals ten week challenge spearheaded by Recipe Girl.
 
A big thanks to our young Canadian blogger, Lauren of Celiac Teen for hosting a wonderful challenge.  I understand she picked this recipe in honour of the Winter Olympics which are being hosted in Canada next month. I will probably still be nibbling these whilst watching two of the few sports on TV which hold any interest to me: ice dancing because it is beautiful and curling because it’s hilarious. 

Graham Crackers – Gluten Free
N.B. I used plain wheat flour instead of the gluten free flours as we were allowed to do this if we couldn’t find the specialist flours.
 

Ingredients:
1 cup (138 g)(4.9 ounces) Sweet rice flour (also known as glutinous rice flour)
3/4 cup (100 g)(3.5 ounces) Tapioca Starch/Flour
1/2 cup (65 g)(2.3 ounces) Sorghum Flour
1 cup (200 g)(7.1 ounces) Dark Brown Sugar, Lightly packed
1 teaspoon (5 ml) Baking soda
3/4 teaspoon (4ml) Kosher Salt
7 tablespoons (100 g) (3 ½ ounces) Unsalted Butter (Cut into 1-inch cubes and frozen)
1/3 cup (80 ml) Honey, Mild-flavoured such as clover.
5 tablespoons (75 ml) Whole Milk
2 tablespoons (30 ml) Pure Vanilla Extract

Directions:
1. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, combine the flours, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt. Pulse on low to incorporate. Add the butter and pulse on and off, until the mixture is the consistency of a coarse meal. If making by hand, combine aforementioned dry ingredients with a whisk, then cut in butter until you have a coarse meal. No chunks of butter should be visible.
2. In a small bowl or liquid measuring cup, whisk together the honey, milk and vanilla. Add to the flour mixture until the dough barely comes together. It will be very soft and sticky.
3. Turn the dough onto a surface well-floured with sweet rice flour and pat the dough into a rectangle about 1 inch thick. Wrap in plastic and chill until firm, about 2 hours, or overnight.
4. Divide the dough in half and return one half to the refrigerator. Sift an even layer of sweet rice flour onto the work surface and roll the dough into a long rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick. The dough will be quite sticky, so flour as necessary. Cut into 4 by 4 inch squares. Gather the scraps together and set aside. Place wafers on one or two parchment-lined baking sheets. Chill until firm, about 30 to 45 minutes. Repeat with the second batch of dough.
5. Adjust the rack to the upper and lower positions and preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius).
6. Gather the scraps together into a ball, chill until firm, and reroll. Dust the surface with more sweet rice flour and roll out the dough to get a couple more wafers.
7. Prick the wafers with toothpick or fork, not all the way through, in two or more rows.
8. Bake for 25 minutes, until browned and slightly firm to the touch, rotating sheets halfway through to ensure even baking. Might take less, and the starting location of each sheet may determine its required time. The ones that started on the bottom browned faster.
9. When cooled completely, place enough wafers in food processor to make 1 ¼ cups (300 mL) of crumbs. Another way to do this is to place in a large ziplock bag, force all air out and smash with a rolling pin until wafers are crumbs.

Nanaimo Bars

 

Ingredients:
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 1/4 cups (300 mL) Gluten Free Graham Wafer Crumbs (See previous recipe)
1/2 cup (55 g)(1.9 ounces) Almonds (Any type, Finely chopped)
1 cup (130 g)(4.5 ounces) Coconut (Shredded, sweetened or unsweetened)

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 Custard Powder (Such as Bird’s. Vanilla pudding mix may be substituted.)
2 cups (254 g)(8.9 ounces) Icing Sugar

Top Layer
4 ounces    (115 g) Semi-sweet chocolate
2 tablespoons    (28 g) (1 ounce) Unsalted Butter

Method:

1. For bottom Layer: 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.
2. For Middle Layer: Cream butter, cream, custard powder, and icing sugar together well. Beat until light in colour. Spread over bottom layer.
3. For Top Layer: Melt chocolate and unsalted butter over low heat. Cool. Once cool, pour over middle layer and chill.

Filed Under: Sweet Baking & Desserts Tagged With: biscuits, chocolate

About Sarah Trivuncic

Sarah Trivuncic has published recipes, restaurant and travel reviews on Maison Cupcake since 2009. She lives in Walthamstow, East London with her husband and teenager.
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Big Red Hearts says

    January 28, 2010 at 11:47 pm

    Mmmm they look lovely! I'm also doing a recipe challenge but by myself, not with any group. My New Year's Resolution was to try a new recipe every week because I felt I was stuck in a rut, cooking the same things week in week out. I must admit I am enjoying it, but then I'm only on week 4! Is the Ten in 10 a weight loss challenge? My other resolution was to lose weight which isn't easy when I love to bake! I've managed just over 4lbs so far with my next weigh in on Saturday. Good luck with yours.
    C xx

    Reply
  2. ScottCanCook says

    January 28, 2010 at 11:35 pm

    AMAZING! both the baking and photography!

    Reply
  3. Sarah, Maison Cupcake says

    January 28, 2010 at 6:10 pm

    Wow, I've been so busy this past 24 hours I've not been able to respond to everyone's comments until now.
    @powderate Yes I did spell it wrong, although the spellling we were given was Nanaimo and not Nanimo. I have no idea which is correct.
    @winnie, @mandym @kelly-jane @nina – thank you!
    @ap269 @gala @tia A last minute moment of inspiration that paid off
    @ramblingtart Curling is the funniest sport I can think of
    @ashafsk @mamatkamal – if only that were possible I would be extremely fat
    @julia melanger – the blue plate is from Ikea
    @deerbaby Grahams are sweet, apparently like digestives tho I think they remind me of the now defunct Abbey Crunch. Nothing like jacobs.
    @marymoh You'll have to move to London or me to Scotland!
    @foodwithstyle, thank you I will investigate your blog
    @kitchenbutterfly They were very good for being able to leave lying about if you were busy!!
    @jenny My fridge was full so I put the cracker dough in the garden when it had snowed and was sub zero out there. They felt cold when I put them in oven so as good as the fridge.
    @bakeinparis Thanks for the welcome!
    @annmartina It's strange we can't get them at all in the UK, if they're THAT nice you'd think we could!

    Reply
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I’m Sarah, a recipe writer sharing thrifty everyday dinners with a touch of French inspiration. I founded Maison Cupcake in 2009 and love creating dishes that are affordable, comforting and achievable. Thanks for visiting!

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