Nanaimo Bars

Lauren of Celiac Teen asked us to go gluten-free for this month's Daring Bakers' challenge. She gave us a recipe for gluten-free graham crackers to try out. But being the kind hostess that she is, she also gave us the option to be wheat-based if we could not find the three specialty flours used in the gluten-free version. I was able to find two of the three flours very easily. Tapioca flour and sweet glutinous rice flour are available in most regular supermarkets around here. Also, my mom always has both in her pantry since they are widely used in Chinese cooking. But I was not able to find the third one, sorghum flour, even at Whole Foods Market. So I decided that I would have to pass on the gluten-free this time.



The graham cracker dough was really easy to whip up in the food processor. But my dough was extremely sticky. I am already handicapped in the dough rolling area so handling sticky dough just made it even harder for me. After rolling the first half out as best as I could and docking the dough to somewhat resemble graham crackers, I decided to just roll the rest into little balls to make round graham crackers.




Oh, I should have mentioned that it didn’t really matter to me what my crackers ended up looking like since I would be smashing the crackers into crumbs to make Nanaimo bars as part 2 of this month's challenge. According to Lauren, Nanaimo bars are a classic Canadian dessert created in none other than Nanaimo, British Colombia. This was also fitting since the Olympic winter games are being hosted in Vancouver, BC next month.

The middle layer of the Nanaimo bar is called a custard layer, but it's really more like a layer of frosting. And it's my least favorite kind of frosting too. It's that one dimensional, sickly sweet butter and powdered sugar kind. My addition of nut butter improved it a bit by making it less one dimensional, but it was still way too sweet for me. I did not want to buy custard powder to make this layer. Lauren said that we could substitute instant vanilla pudding mix, but I never buy instant pudding mix since I'm a "from scratch" girl. I found an acceptable substitution (from Nigella Lawson) of cornstarch, sugar, vanilla extract since custard powder is just that along with some food coloring too.

The bottom layer is made with graham cracker crumbs, almonds, shredded unsweetened coconut and some Dutch-processed cocoa powder. This was my favorite layer. I liked the fragrant coconut, the hint of cocoa and the nuttiness of the almonds. I used ground almonds which added a pleasant chewiness to the crust. The top layer was a simple glaze of melted chocolate and butter.



After tasting the frosting alone, I had no desire to even try the fully assembled bars. I just brought it all to the office. I was surprised that they were very well liked by my office mates. I heard words like decadent and sinful. It was a good thing I cut them into tiny 1 by 1 inch squares. I did save one piece at home for my husband who said that when the frosting was combined with the crust it was not as sweet as you would think. So I took a tiny bite and he was right. Even though I still thought the bar was too sweet, the crust really helped to temper some of the sweetness from the frosting.

Overall, the Nanaimo bar was not something that I would make again, but I enjoyed making the graham crackers and I vow to make them gluten-free in the future.

The fine print:
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.

It Began With Brownies

... and ended with some cookies.

I've been trying out different chocolate brownie recipes lately. Some recipes have been good, but not great. And some have been downright bad. I don't know if it's me or the recipes, but I have yet to find a recipe that I love. I have always had trouble making simple chocolate brownies. Pate a choux? No problem. Cheesecake? A breeze. Molten caramel? Piece of cake. But your basic chocolate brownies? Hit or miss. It's not rocket science. It's brownies for heaven's sake! Ugh. I don’t know what's wrong with me.

One particular batch of brownies turned out pretty dry around the edges, but was okay in the middle. I really hate wasting food, so I cut off the dry borders and stored them in the freezer. I brought the middle piece to work to share with the folks at the office.

What was I storing those edges for? I had no idea. Maybe I would make brownie chunk ice cream if I ever got around to buying an ice cream machine (since making my own ice cream is one of my 2010 resolutions). Or maybe I would blitz them in the food processor and use them with the cake crumbs ala red velvet kisses (a perfect treat for Valentine's Day). But then I remembered seeing a recipe for brownie chunk cookies in a past issue of Bon Appetit magazine. At the time I thought it sounded a bit weird and I hardly gave it second thought. Who would ever think to put brownie chunks into a cookie? Apparently someone did. And boy was I glad!

It's basically a chocolate chip cookie where baked chocolate brownie chunks are used in lieu of chocolate chips. I would have expected that brownie chunks baked into a cookie would turn hard or dry considering that they would be double baked. But I guess that the cookie batter (with the butter and sugar) did a good job of hydration. The formerly dry brownie edges were somehow transformed. Imagine if I had started with moist brownies!

I did make some minor changes to the recipe. I made the cookies smaller than specified in the original recipe and, therefore, I cut my brownie chunks smaller too. I mixed in the brownie chunks really well so that they were more crumbly than chunky. I liked that the little bursts of chocolate brownie were almost indistinguishable in texture from the cookie itself. But feel free to gently fold in the brownie chunks if you want them to stay a bit more distinct in the cookie. I got some nice compliments about the cookies from my co-workers.

As strange as I initially found the idea of putting brownies into cookies, it's really quite genius. And since my chocolate brownie trials are ongoing, it's a great way to use up all those not so successful batches of brownies.

Lemon Triple Threat

Happy New Year! I hope your holiday season was delightful. I guess the proper thing to do in January is post about a low-fat/low-calorie dessert. But if you know anything about me you know that I don't do low-fat/low-cal dessert. I believe that you can eat dessert as long as it's in moderation. So even if you're watching your waistline, it's okay to have a cupcake every once in awhile. And if I had to pick just one cupcake in the whole wide world, then this lemon cupcake is the one I would choose.

For the cupcake batter I took my meyer lemon cupcake recipe and tweaked it slightly. I replaced some of the buttermilk in that recipe with heavy cream and lemon juice. I filled the cupcakes with a homemade lemon curd and then frosted it with a nice swirl of lemon buttercream. Even though I have an endless supply of meyer lemons from the tree that keeps on giving, I decided to use regular lemons because I really wanted that assertive lemon flavor in all three components.

The buttercream recipe is based on Dorie Greenspan's Swiss buttercream (from her perfect party cake). I decreased the vanilla, increased the amount of lemon juice and added some lemon zest to really up the lemon factor. When you taste it there is no doubt that this is a lemon buttercream.

The lemon curd is very loosely adapted from a recipe on Helen's website. When I first saw her recipe I knew it was exactly what I had been looking for. Most of the time lemon curd recipes have butter, but Helen's recipe has no butter. It's lip-smacking (or should I say lip-puckering?) and absolutely delicious. I could eat a tub of it with nothing but a spoon and smile. (But I have to refrain since I need all of it to fill 2 dozen cupcakes).

Sure, you can use store bought lemon curd. Or you can simplify and just leave out the lemon curd. The unfilled cupcake with the lemon buttercream is still very lemon-y and quite delicious. But if you're going to have just one cupcake it might as well be an awesome one. And the lemon curd filling really elevates this cupcake to awesome.