Nanaimo Bars

This week I finally got round to making these. If you've never heard of Nanaimo bars, they're a Canadian dessert that consists of a chocolatey biscuit/wafer base, followed by a layer of creamy custard and a ganache type icing. 

I wasn't really sure what to expect, as I'd never eaten one before, but these are really good. All the layers melt beautifully together to give you a delicious slice of heaven. The crunchy base with coconut and almond is delicious and the dark chocolate ganache has a good amount of bitterness to contrast against sweet vanilla custard.

I had a few issues along the way. *First was that my chocolate split after I added in the egg. It luckily seemed to be OK once I'd added in the other ingredients - but my advice would be to let your melted mixture cool a little before whisking in the egg. I'm still also confused as to why the biscuit layer needs an egg in it in the first place - but hey, it tasted great so I won't change the recipe. In fact, a lot of nanaimo bar recipes I looked at used an egg in the base, seems odd to me, but it did work fine. 

I also screwed up the quantities of flour in the custard and ended up adding double the amount, which just meant that I ended up with a very thick custard. It still tasted fabulous, reminded me of the custard that you get in the Daim cake at Ikea. If your custard starts going lumpy, just whisk it like mad - it may just be the flour cooking off, as opposed to the eggs scrambling. If in doubt just turn turn the heat down. 

Nanaimo Bars 

Recipe from From The Larder, with my annotations 

Makes 12 bars, or many many small bars if you cut them very small like me. 

Bottom Chocolate Biscuit Layer:
50g/2oz 75% dark chocolate
115g/4oz unsalted butter
75g/3oz caster sugar
40g/1 1/2 cocoa
1 egg, lightly beaten
160g/5 1/2oz digestives, crushed
45g whole blanched almonds, toasted then roughly chopped (you can toast these easily on a dry frying pan for 5 to 10 minutes)
75g/3oz desiccated coconut, toasted (just pop your coconut in the same frying pan as the almonds over a high heat for literally a minute, if that) 

1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a bain marie then add the sugar and cocoa and stir in until a smooth liquid has formed.

2. Pour the molten chocolate into the beaten egg carefully, whisking all the while until it has completely blended. Pour everything back into the bain marie and continue to whisk together until it has formed a thick custard. My mixture split at this stage, see above for my tip*. 

3. Remove from the heat, then stir in the crushed digestives, almonds and coconut. 

4. Tip into a lined and greased 8-inch square baking tin, pressing into an even layer then place it the fridge to set for 1 hour. I recommended using greaseproof paper so nothing gets stuck! 

Middle Custard Layer:
320ml whole milk (I used semi skimmed which worked well)
½ vanilla pod, halved with seeds scraped out (I used a teaspoon of vanilla extract)
6 egg yolks
115g/4oz caster sugar
50g/2oz flour 

1. Pour the milk into a smallish saucepan and add the vanilla pod and seeds. Heat until just under boiling point and turn off the heat. 

2. Whisk together the egg yolks and caster sugar until pale and thickened then add the flour mixing until completely incorporated.Very carefully pour the warm milk into the egg mixture, whisking all the while to stop the egg from curdling.

3. Once all the milk has been incorporated into the eggs pour back into the saucepan then bring up to a careful boil whisking continuously until the mixture is very thick and smooth.
Take off the heat and pour over the top of the choco-coconut bottom layer, spreading out evenly. Sit some cling film over the top of the custard layer to stop a skin from forming then place in the fridge for about an hour to cool and set.

Chocolate Ganache Top Layer:
150g/5oz 54% dark chocolate (or 75g milk chocolate + 75g dark chocolate), I used 70% dark chocolate - I like the bitter contrast, but if you don't then go ahead and use half milk chocolate
30g/1oz salted butter
2 tablespoons sour cream

1. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bain marie. Remove from the heat and stir in the sour cream.

2. Pour the chocolate ganache over the custard layer then place in the fridge to chill and set.
Sprinkle some chocolate shavings over the top if you like.

3. Once the top layer has set then cut into bars and guzzle down to your heart’s content.