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Original nanaimo bar recipe comes from B.C.

By Laura Crooks laurac@spokesman.com

A former Spokanite now living in Southern California was looking for a recipe for Lindaman’s Nanaimo Bars. We didn’t find the recipe in our archives, but we did find the following recipe, which is claimed to be the original.

The recipe was published in a story written by Billie Moreland, who first learned about the sweet treat during a trip to Vancouver, B.C. In the years that followed, Moreland encountered several variations of the bars. On a quest to find the original nanaimo, Moreland unearthed this recipe from the tourism office in city of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.

We also found a very similar recipe in The Spokesman-Review’s recipe vault, aka the Dorothy Dean files, which calls for any kind of nut and uses vanilla pudding powder instead of custard powder.

The Ultimate Nanaimo Bar Recipe

By Joyce Hardcastle, courtesy of Tourism Nanaimo (Published in The Spokesman-Review in September 1995)

Bottom Layer:

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/4 cup sugar

5 tablespoons cocoa

1 egg, beaten

1 3/4 cups graham wafer (cracker) crumbs

1/2 cup finely chopped almonds

1 cup coconut

Second Layer:

1/2 cup unsalted butter

2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons cream

2 tablespoons Bird’s vanilla custard powder (available in some supermarkets)

2 cups icing (powdered) sugar

Third Layer:

4 (1-ounce) squares semisweet chocolate

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

For bottom layer, melt butter, sugar and cocoa in the top of a 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-by-8-inch pan. For second layer, cream butter, cream, custard powder and icing sugar together well. Beat until light. Spread on bottom layer. For top layer, melt chocolate and butter over low heat; cool. When cool, but still liquid, pour over second layer and chill in refrigerator. Cut into squares.

Yield: About 2 dozen bars

Approximate nutrition per bar: 226 calories, 15 grams fat (8.3 grams saturated, 58 percent fat calories), 2.4 grams protein, 22 grams carbohydrate, 34 milligrams cholesterol, 1.8 grams dietary fiber, 60 milligrams sodium.