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 – as they are tricky to buy in the UK, I have listed Ritz Crackers in the ingredients.
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.
Nanaimo Bars - Bitesize Version for UK Readers
The Canadian classic treat in a mini bitesize version.
Equipment
- 8x8 inch square baking tin
Ingredients
For The Bottom Layer
- 115 g Unsalted Butter
- 50 g caster sugar
- 5 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 large egg beaten
- 125 g Graham cracker crumbs (or crushed Ritz Crackers)
- 55 g ground almonds
- 130 g dessicated coconut
For The Middle Layer
- 115 g butter unsalted
- 40 ml double cream
- 2 tbsp custard powder I used Birds
- 250 g icing sugar (confectioners sugar)
For The Top Layer
- 115 g dark chocolate
- 28 g butter unsalted
Instructions
For The 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.
For The Middle Layer:
- Cream butter, cream, custard powder, and icing sugar together well. Beat until light in colour. Spread over bottom layer.
For The Top Layer:
- Melt chocolate and unsalted butter over low heat. Cool. Once cool, pour over middle layer and chill.
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
AMAZING! both the baking and photography!
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!