Junglefrog Cooking » nanaimo http://junglefrog-cooking.com Cooking, travel and photography Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:00:56 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Daring Bakers: Nanaimo Bars http://junglefrog-cooking.com/daring-bakers-nanaimo-bars/ http://junglefrog-cooking.com/daring-bakers-nanaimo-bars/#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:23:30 +0000 Simone (junglefrog) http://junglefrog-cooking.com/?p=1648 Ok, don’t you all dare to laugh at me… Yes I forgot to make the challenge but I think I came back pretty quickly didn’t I? I was lucky that an appointment for today was cancelled so I all of a sudden had time to make these lovely bars. I first started with making the [...]]]>

Nanaimo bars

Ok, don’t you all dare to laugh at me… :) Yes I forgot to make the challenge but I think I came back pretty quickly didn’t I? I was lucky that an appointment for today was cancelled so I all of a sudden had time to make these lovely bars.

I first started with making the Graham wafers, which were very simple to make really. I did not make them glutenfree. I wanted to but to find glutenfree flour here is simply impossible. At least not in any store nearby so I figured I might as well do the wheat version. I did use part riceflour since I still had that from when I went to Amsterdam and saw it. I had no idea what tapioca was, so didn’t bother finding that and just went with wheatflour.

I didn’t have vanilla essence either, so I substituted this with cinnamon essence and I actually think that was a brilliant choice as I loved the slight cinnamon flavour of the cookies. I kept eating little bits of the dough. It was so good!

I had never had Graham crackers before so I wouldn’t be able to tell you what they are supposed to be like but I quite liked mine. I think I did roll them out a little too thickly. I mean 1/8 inch doesn’t mean anything to me except that it is roughy 1/8 of roughly 2,5 cm… :) I was a bit too lazy to actually calculate it so I just guessed a bit what would be the right thickness. And then again, I don’t know if mine were wrong or not as I have nothing to compair them with. They did bake longer then the 25 minutes that Lauren had given, but considering the fact that we have a terrible oven in need of replacement; that is probably the reason. O let me first get one thing out of the way:

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.

Once they were baked I got on with making the middle layer which consists of looooots of sugar, butter, cream and custard. I thought it was very very sweet so to counterbalance that a bit I added about 2-3 tablespoons of lemon curd and that did the trick for me. The sourness got rid of a bit of the sweetness and I love the subtle lemon flavor. But then I am a true lemonlover so anything lemon is good in my mind. But I think it went well together with the rest.

I did think that the qty of the middle layer was not really enough compaired to the other layers. I think my form was about the right size but I felt I had to spread the yellow layer too thin resulting in just a very small layer in the middle. So I actually didn’t spread it through the entire tin but left about a quarter open. So I will have only the bottom on that part… :)

Making the graham crackers was really the biggest part of the work and the rest was pretty easy. I made the photos while the top layer of chocolate had not really been long enough in the fridge so it is a bit too moist still, but I totally loved the taste. As I said I am glad I added the lemon in there as that gave it a little bit of freshness with all the heavy chocolate in there. It is VERY filling and since I just had lunch I really only tasted a tiny bit. Tom did eat an entire ‘bar’ (the one in the photo) and he thought it was extremely good too.

Thankfully as we have quite some of it left… :)

So there you have it; the Daring Bakers January challenge; behind schedule but not too bad! I am happy that I still got to make them as I hate missing a challenge!!

For the full recipe have a look here and to see what the other amazing Daring Bakers have made you can check here

If you want to keep with my changes then substitute the vanilla essence in the graham wafers for 2 tbsp of cinnamon essence and add to the middle layer about 2 large tablespoons of lemon curd. (BTW; I love lemon curd! I can still remember seeing it somewhere for the first time and buying a jar, not really knowing what I was gonna use it for, but I use it for soooo many things! Love it!)

So apologies for posting late. Will do better next time!

Related Posts:

]]> http://junglefrog-cooking.com/daring-bakers-nanaimo-bars/feed/ 42