0 Nanaimo Bars

Lauren of Celiac Teen asked us to go gluten-free for this month's Daring Bakers' challenge. She gave us a recipe for gluten-free graham crackers to try out. But being the kind hostess that she is, she also gave us the option to be wheat-based if we could not find the three specialty flours used in the gluten-free version. I was able to find two of the three flours very easily. Tapioca flour and sweet glutinous rice flour are available in most regular supermarkets around here. Also, my mom always has both in her pantry since they are widely used in Chinese cooking. But I was not able to find the third one, sorghum flour, even at Whole Foods Market. So I decided that I would have to pass on the gluten-free this time.



The graham cracker dough was really easy to whip up in the food processor. But my dough was extremely sticky. I am already handicapped in the dough rolling area so handling sticky dough just made it even harder for me. After rolling the first half out as best as I could and docking the dough to somewhat resemble graham crackers, I decided to just roll the rest into little balls to make round graham crackers.




Oh, I should have mentioned that it didn’t really matter to me what my crackers ended up looking like since I would be smashing the crackers into crumbs to make Nanaimo bars as part 2 of this month's challenge. According to Lauren, Nanaimo bars are a classic Canadian dessert created in none other than Nanaimo, British Colombia. This was also fitting since the Olympic winter games are being hosted in Vancouver, BC next month.

The middle layer of the Nanaimo bar is called a custard layer, but it's really more like a layer of frosting. And it's my least favorite kind of frosting too. It's that one dimensional, sickly sweet butter and powdered sugar kind. My addition of nut butter improved it a bit by making it less one dimensional, but it was still way too sweet for me. I did not want to buy custard powder to make this layer. Lauren said that we could substitute instant vanilla pudding mix, but I never buy instant pudding mix since I'm a "from scratch" girl. I found an acceptable substitution (from Nigella Lawson) of cornstarch, sugar, vanilla extract since custard powder is just that along with some food coloring too.

The bottom layer is made with graham cracker crumbs, almonds, shredded unsweetened coconut and some Dutch-processed cocoa powder. This was my favorite layer. I liked the fragrant coconut, the hint of cocoa and the nuttiness of the almonds. I used ground almonds which added a pleasant chewiness to the crust. The top layer was a simple glaze of melted chocolate and butter.



After tasting the frosting alone, I had no desire to even try the fully assembled bars. I just brought it all to the office. I was surprised that they were very well liked by my office mates. I heard words like decadent and sinful. It was a good thing I cut them into tiny 1 by 1 inch squares. I did save one piece at home for my husband who said that when the frosting was combined with the crust it was not as sweet as you would think. So I took a tiny bite and he was right. Even though I still thought the bar was too sweet, the crust really helped to temper some of the sweetness from the frosting.

Overall, the Nanaimo bar was not something that I would make again, but I enjoyed making the graham crackers and I vow to make them gluten-free in the future.

The fine print:
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.


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