Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Daring Bakers do the Olympics!

Second month bake in the swing of things since baby bounced onto the scene. How exciting! I will be making these bars again!

**Side note is it frowned upon if I eat my husbands valentines chocolate before I even give it to him? Yea? Darn!**

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.

I will admit that I did not make the gluten free. Maybe in the states, gluten free flours are a bit cheaper, but here they are expensive! And I couldn't even find them on the German economy. My graham wafers were delicious though. I followed the recipe closely for them and didn't have any sort of problem with the dough. I did slim it down though to 1/4 the recipe since I was making them just for me!

I got a little trickier with the Nanaimo bars though. I divided the recipe in half, substituted...some other type of nut...I honestly don't remember what...for the the almonds and scrapped to coconut.

Bottom Layer
½ cup unsalted butter (European style cultured)
¼ cup sugar
5 tbsp. cocoa
1 egg beaten
1 ¼ cups graham wafer crumbs
½ c. finely chopped almonds
1 cup coconut

Melt first 3 ingredients in top of double boiler. Add egg and stir to cook and thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, coconut, and nuts. Press firmly into an ungreased 8" x 8" pan.

I'll admit that I didn't make the second layer at all. I sweetened some marscapone cheese with a little powdered sugar and used that. It was super yummy.

Second Layer
½ cup unsalted butter
2 Tbsp. and 2 Tsp. cream
2 Tbsp. vanilla custard powder
2 cups icing sugar

Cream butter, cream, custard powder, and icing sugar together well. Beat until light. Spread over bottom layer.

Third Layer
4 squares semi-sweet chocolate (1 oz. each)
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter

Melt chocolate and butter overlow heat. Cool. Once cool, but still liquid, pour over second layer and chill in refrigerator.


10 comments:

  1. Looks great...this was surely a wonderful challenge.I also loved the layout of ur blog:)

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  2. i like your version of nanaimo bars :) i also made mine with wheat flour

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  3. If you are interested in making the gluten-free version: in Germany you'll find glutinous rice flour and tapioca starch in every Asian food store. You can buy sorghum at almost every grocerie store and grind it if you have a grain mill (that's what I did). Anyway, good job on your bars!

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  4. oh, my...that looks lovely and tasty and oh so good...glad you're still DBing it!

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  5. by the way, my word for posting just now was "fodenugg" which sounds like it might be some sort of German-American foodie thing???

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  6. That sounds really good with the mascarpone - like a Nanaimo cheesecake. Mmmm!

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  7. I love your idea of using the mascarpone cheese in the middle layer--yummy! :)

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  8. Mmm, I like how you made it in a dish, sort of like a giant cookie pie! Looks delicious. :)

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  9. Love what you did with my challenge! It looks fantastic =D.

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