For this week’s blog, I’ve decided to make Nanaimo Bars, which are a classic dessert treat from Canada. I haven’t made a dessert for this blog for a while so I thought this would be a fun recipe to switch things up a bit!
Someone last week asked where I find these recipes every week, and honestly I usually just stumble upon them one way or another. Sometimes I also just go on a little internet hunt for different cultural recipes I’m interested in making and then I go from there in terms of research and actually finding the right recipe to follow.
So for this week, I came across a Candian food blog and found this recipe. This treat originates from Nanaimo, British Colombia. The earliest documented recipe for Nanaimo bars is found in 1952. I’ve also read some articles where people call them “Dairy Bars” too, especially in the US states near Canada. As you can see in the picture, there are three layers to these bars. From top to bottom, the layers go chocolate ganache (sometimes referred to as the glaze), vanilla custard, and then coconut-graham.
Making this recipe was not as difficult as I originally expected. I did have to go out and get most of the ingredients, but they were really not that hard to find (I’m just not usually much of a baker). The recipe was really easy to follow and just required melting or mixing the ingredients together layer by layer. The hardest part was definitely being patient enough to take them out of the fridge when they were ready as opposed to taking them out too early.
During the process, I did get a little bit distracted by all of the different parts of this recipe and making sure I did everything in the right order. I was worried that my layers
would come out uneven but shaking the pan for a little bit really helped even everything out. The whole process took about an hour and a half which includes the time I had to refrigerate each layer.
I really liked these Nanaimo bars and am really happy with how they turned out. I was worried that they would be too sweet, but they were actually not (they were just the right amount of sweet). I was happy to have a whole pan of them so that I can snack on them for the rest of the week. This recipe is great because you can make as many or little bars as you want just depending on how you cut them up. I was also interested to find a recipe that was totally microwave-only and didn’t require a stove or oven. That was a fun find for me because that means that this is a pretty easy dorm-room recipe for the future!
If you decide to make this recipe or have other recipes you think I should make in the future, I’d love to hear about it! As always, thanks for reading!
Sources:
https://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipe/the-ultimate-nanaimo-bar/16810/
https://www.foodnetwork.ca/shows/great-canadian-cookbook/blog/history-of-nanaimo-bars/
YUMMY!! These look absolutely delicious! I am a sucker for anything coconut so I think that I would thoroughly enjoy these treats! I love how you always incorporate some history into these recipes. I think that it makes them that much more authentic. That picture you included has me wanting to try this recipe out! It is so interesting that you were able to make these with only a microwave! That definitely makes them more appealing to me because as you said, dorm room friendly (or just a college girl who does not know how to actually cook/bake)! Thank you for sharing this delicious treat with all of us! I think i might actually have to try this recipe out for myself!!
Hi Anna,
Wow these look absolutely amazing and delicious. I love chocolate and coconut, so this looks right up my alley. You including the history was also really insightful and I found it to be fascinating. I have recently started to bake more and try out new things. I loved the simplicity of this recipe, because I feel like I can actually try it. I want to try them especially because you said they weren’t too sweet. I love treats, but I get so overwhelmed when it’s too rich.
Thanks so much Anna!
OMG Anna these look so good! My sweet tooth thanks you for doing a dessert recipe. I am not a big fan of coconut so I’m not sure if I would actually like it but it looks really good! My grandma has a recipe that reminds me of this. She calls them frozen s’mores. It’s a chocolate bark top with homemade custard in the middle and then a gram cracker marshmellowy bottom layer. I am pretty sure my grandma just made it up but it is very good but super messy. I appreciate how much work you put into finding recipes for your blog, it really shows how passionate you are about cooking. Looking forward to your last blog 🙂