Daring Bakers: Nanaimo Bars

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 http://www.nanaimo.ca/.

So....I'm a little late (only 13 days) on January's challenge! For some reason, I really had to push myself to make this challenge. It just didn't sound that appetizing to me and I just wasn't feeling it. I finally decided to go with "better late than never" and I am so glad I did! I was wrong, wrong, wrong! Nanaimo bars are one of the best desserts I've ever had! They are rich, sinful, decadent, and just plain awesome!

January's challenge was a two part challenge:

Part 1: Make homemade graham crackers.

Part 2: Make Nanaimo bars.

We also had the option of making everything gluten free, but I opted to make my mine with AP flour.

So, what are Nanaimo bars? They are a Canadian no bake bar with three layers:

1: A chocolate layer.

2: A layer of light vanilla or custard flavoured buttercream.

3: A wafer crumb-based layer.

Graham Crackers
I used this graham cracker recipe provided by our host, but I used Earth Balance for the butter and Trader Joe's Maple Agave Blend for the honey. They were really simple to make and tasted great!

Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt in a food processor.

Cut in the Earth Balance until it becomes a coarse meal.

Add agave, soy milk and vanilla and blend until the dough comes together.

Roll out dough, cut into rectangles and mark with a fork.

Bake at 350° for 15 minutes. Done!

Nanaimo Bars

I used the Nanaimo bar recipe featured on Julies Hasson's EverydayDish TV , by vegan cookbook author Sarah Kramer. I used ground pecans instead of walnuts and used dark chocolate instead of unsweetened chocolate. This recipe is amazing! They are VERY rich, so I recommend cutting them into one inch squares.

Melt Earth Balance with sugar over low heat.

Add cocoa powder and whisk until smooth.

Smooth and yummy!

Mix chocolate mixture with the flax seeds, water, ground pecans, coconut and graham cracker crumbs until combined.

Press mixture into an 8X8 pan and set aside.

Melt dark chocolate and Earth Balance and set aside.

Cream together Earth Balance, soy milk, vanilla, corn starch, turmeric and powdered sugar until well mixed.

Spread buttercream layer on top of the graham cracker layer and then pour the cooled chocolate layer on top.

Delicious!

Decadent!

They went too fast!