Nanaimo Bars
NANAIMO, A SMALL city on Vancouver Island in the Canadian province of British Columbia, is just a few miles from Washington State, yet the city’s namesake sweet is virtually unknown in the United States. But Nanaimo (“nuh-NIGH-moe”) bars deserve a bigger stage. These three-layer bars, with their coconutty cookie bases, creamy centers, and chocolate ganache tops, have a spectrum of sweet flavors and satisfying textures worthy of international recognition.
To bring the bars stateside, I found five different recipes for Nanaimo bars, including a version from Nanaimo’s city government. I spread them out for my tasters, and we assessed, layer by layer.
While some recipes took a no-cook route for the base, our favorite from this initial lineup called for cooking butter, sugar, cocoa powder, and an egg in a double boiler and then stirring in graham cracker crumbs, coconut, and chopped nuts once the mixture had thickened. We loved the fudgy and slightly chewy texture of this crust: sturdy enough to carry around but soft enough to sink our teeth into without destroying the bar. But I wanted to see if I could achieve it in an easier way.
I first ditched the egg, which requires cooking to do its work as a binder and stabilizing agent. Instead I turned to chocolate chips, which I melted in the microwave and stirred into the mixture. Once cooled, the crust was firm—but too firm, almost candy bar–like. In my next test I added some corn syrup and achieved the slightly softer result I was after.
