Making Nanaimo Bars (A No-Bake Canadian Dessert)

Today, I'm going to be making Nanaimo bars. I've never made this recipe before. It is a three-layer bar that is very famous, very well-known in Canada, but I have never heard of it, never had a Nanaimo bar here. So I've got this recipe from allrecipes.com. I will link it in the description below. But the first thing I'm gonna do is tell you all of the ingredients you're going to need. You will need one stick of butter, softened. You need a fourth cup of white sugar, five tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder, one egg beaten, one and three fourths cups graham cracker crumbs, one cup flaked coconut, a half a cup finely chopped almonds, a half cup butter softened, so that is the other stick, three tablespoons of heavy cream, two tablespoons of custard powder, two cups of confectioner's sugar, one ounce of semi-sweet baking chocolate, which is not much at all, two teaspoons of butter, and that is all, that is all your ingredients. So now I'm gonna set up my camera and we'll get started. So we do not own a double boiler, so what I did was I put some water in a pan and then I, and you don't want it to touch the bottom of your bowl, but then you put a glass bowl on top of it and you're gonna let your water start boiling before you add your ingredients. My water is starting to boil, so you want to take one of your sticks of butter and you take your stick of butter and your sugar and your cocoa and you want to mix this until it is smooth. At this point, you want to beat in your egg. It's gotten thicker, you can turn off your heat. It's helpful if you have something like this to use to lift the bowl off the pot because it is going to be scalding hot. So very carefully, you want to remove it from the heat. At this point, you want to add your graham cracker crumbs, your coconut, and your almonds. The almonds are optional, you don't have to have those. So mix this together. You press this into the bottom of an eight by eight inch pan. So this is my, this is the eight by eight inch pan that I'm using. So we're gonna set this aside. This is your bottom layer and you notice that that was an ungreased pan, so that gets set aside. So next, you are going to cream together your other stick of butter, your custard powder, and your heavy whipping cream. That looks pretty light and fluffy to me. So now you want to mix in the confectioner's sugar until it is smooth. I'll move you over. And then we're gonna go back to our pan here and we're gonna spread this topping all over the top of that layer. Now I'm going to put this in the refrigerator and let it chill and I'll be right back to show you what we're gonna do next. So while our mixture is in the refrigerator chilling, you want to take your two tablespoons of butter, which isn't, I'm sorry, two teaspoons of butter. This is only two teaspoons of butter. So you take this and your chocolate and you're going to heat this in the microwave and it won't take long. Okay, that looks like mashed potatoes, by the way. I'll let this chill in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes before I melted this. I don't see how this is supposed to cover this eight by eight pan. I mean, that's not much chocolate at all. I have no idea. And the bars that I've seen pictures of, even the bars that came with this recipe, they show a thick, thick layer of chocolate on top. So I don't get that. This, I mean, you can see this is a joke. I have no idea why they said use that little amount. And people have commented that they have made this recipe before, but there's no way that I'm going to be able to spray. I mean, that's a joke. So I'm going to, I'm going to double it. I'm going to double the teaspoons and I'm going to double the chocolate. We'll be back. Okay, I'm back. Basically, I tripled what they said because I just, that was, that was ridiculous to even think that, and you can see my chocolate is lighter because I just used the amount that I thought was best. So I'm going to spread this out. You can see, I could have even used more chocolate. So more chocolate, more butter, because this did not go to the edge and I'm trying to just barely touch it with the back of my spoon because I don't want to, I want there to be a distinct chocolate layer. So I'm sure this is supposed to go all the way to the edge and if the recipe had been correct, it would have made more. So now you put this in the refrigerator and I have a cover for mine, but you know what? I'm going to leave it uncovered. I was going to say I'm going to cover it, but I'm not. I'm going to leave it uncovered just like this in the refrigerator until this is completely cooled, probably at least an hour, and then we'll be back. So I took the bars out of the refrigerator and cut them. I will tell you, I tried to cut them. The recipe did not tell you how long they needed to be in the refrigerator. So I first tried to cut them too early and that bottom layer just fell apart. It was like a crumbly, horrible mess. So I left them in the refrigerator for, it's been probably three hours. I left them in the refrigerator. I wonder if you could put them in the freezer for just a little bit. You probably could put them in the freezer for a couple of hours. For sure, to be frozen solid. I was going to say, you probably could put them in the freezer for maybe a half an hour, but you need to put them in the refrigerator for probably about three hours. That way the bottom can set up. I don't want to. I want to put them on the bottom. No, no. Go ahead, take it. Oh, you want that one? I like this one. Ooh, that's a thick layer of cream. Look at that. I like it. So the cream and the bottom is basically the same thickness. That's what the show showed. That is so rich and so sweet. That is good. I love that. I think I could just eat the layer in the middle. The cream with the chocolate. I like that. And then the coconut, though, really adds a lot to it too. I'm going to link, put a link in the description below for this recipe, but you are going to have to have more chocolate chips for the topping and more butter, you know, because like I said, I had to add more. It was like it was mistyped or something. And then other people have made this supposedly and left comments, rated it, and no one mentioned needing, that I saw, needing more chocolate or butter. So it's like, did they just do it and then not leave a comment? Because they should have, you know, when you find an error like that. So the number was definitely wrong. So everything else was fine, though. These are very sweet and delicious. Very fun. I'm glad. I'm glad you liked it. But if you have maybe a variation of these bars and you would like to share it with me, then please feel free to share it in the comments below. And thanks for watching.