Nanaimo Bars Recipe

My ultimate favourite Canadian holiday treat recipe

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Listen I won’t lie, I really wasn’t in the mood to do much of any holiday baking this year. Having had covid half the month really sucked it out of me lol. That said there is one holiday treat I never skip no matter what! NAMAIMO BARSSSSSS! I have always stuck pretty close to the Canadian Living recipe with a few tweaks of my own which I’ll share with you guys here. Also I pretty much ALWAYS double the recipe cause 1 batch is never enough i our house lol.

Ingredients

Base:

• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs

• 1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut

• 1/2 cup finely chopped walnut

• 1/4 cup cocoa powder

• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

• 1/3 cup butter melted

• 1 egg lightly beaten

Filling:

• 1/4 cup butter softened

• 2 tablespoons custard powder

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

• 2 cups icing sugar

• 2 tablespoons milk (add more if needed)

Topping:

• 8 oz semisweet chocolate chopped

• 2 tablespoon butter

Method

In bowl, stir together graham crumbs, coconut, walnuts, cocoa powder and sugar. Drizzle with butter and egg, stirring until combined.

Press very firmly with a fork into a buttered 9-inch square cake pan. Bake in 350F oven until firm, about 10 minutes. Let cool in pan on rack.

Filling: In bowl, beat together butter, custard powder and vanilla. Beat in icing sugar alternately with milk, making 3 additions of sugar and 2 of milk and adding more milk if too thick to spread. Spread over cooled base. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.

Topping: In heatproof bowl over saucepan of hot (not boiling) water, melt chocolate with butter; spread over filling. Refrigerate until chocolate is almost set, about 30 minutes.

With tip of knife, score into bars; refrigerate until chocolate is completely set, about 30 minutes. Cut into bars and store in fridge for upto 2 weeks.

They will never look perfect and tbh are a pain in the butt to cut into square but they will ALWAYS taste absolutely delicious!