If it's time for the dept pot-luck, it's time for nanaimo bars! Looks like this is now an annual even, and a chance for me to feed *way* too much sugar to IT mgmt.
For those of you who have never made nor seen nanaimo bars before, I'm going to share this year's recipe.
Some good things about nanaimo bars:
1. Even though you have wait states between layers, you can just put what you have currently assembled into the fridge or freezer and take it out whenever
2. Cover them with plastic wrap, and freeze them for a week before you need to bring them in. No worries about putting something together the night before the potluck.
3. There's nothing special in the cookies, unless you count the Byrd's custard powder, and I'm seeing that in Safeway these days. Between the Byrd's, the Nutella and the Ribena, it's getting absolutely cosmopolitan out there in supermarket land!
4. People absolutely freak over these cookies.
So.....
What you will need:
Byrd's custard powder. The smallest package I've seen is 4 packets, so you can use it to make pseudo-trifles when you're done. If you're feeling sorry for your diabetic friends (there is no way to make these cookies even remotely sugar-free), Byrd's custard power is an excellent base for sugar-free puddings of various sorts.
Graham crackers and Nabsco (ooh, Mr Christie! for north of 49th) "Famous Wafers"--enough for 3 cups of crumbs. This is where I make my break with orthodoxy. I like the chocolate wafers more than adding cocoa powder to the graham cracker crumbs. I'll even make the cookies with all wafers.
Chopped walnuts--enough for 1 cup finely chopped
Flaked coconut--enough for 2 cups
Powdered/icing sugar--4 cups. Note that the standard box will get you 3 3/4 cups. There's a conspiracy here....
Granulated sugar--1/2 cup
2 bags chocolate chips, amounting to about 16 oz or 500g. I like a half and half of milk chocolate and semi-sweet. Use something *good*, not some cheap waxy stuff.
White chocolate doesn't cut it, but if you have some, it's nice to drizzle some melted white on the top layer.
1lb butter, unsalted
2 eggs. Yeah, you could use egg substitute, but *why*?
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp "fior di sicilia" extract. This has an amazing citrus/vanilla taste to it. I've also used raspberry extract (the good stuff) as well.
parchment paper, plastic wrap and a nice throwaway aluminium 9x13 pan
The usual mixing and measuring stuff, an oven, and a fridge
so....
Heat the oven to 350F/180C
Cut enough parchment paper to line the pan with about 2in/4cm beyond the top. Put a dot of butter on the bottom of the pan as a grab if the paper fights back.
Take 1 cup of butter, put it into a 2 cup heat resistant, non-metallic measuring cup, and stick it in the microwave for 30 seconds on high. The butter should melt, but not be molten.
Take out whatever you use for mixing, a largeish bowl, and add 2 eggs. Beat the eggs. Add the 1/2 cup of sugar. Continue beating. Add the melted, but not hot butter. Now slowly add the crumbs, the coconut, and the walnuts. At some point, you will want to mix by hand. The final mix should be fairly stiff.
Take the fix and dump into the parchment lined pan. Spread it around until it covers the bottom of the pan evenly, and pop in the oven for 12-15 minutes. It should set up, but not be hard when it comes out of the oven. Put the pan on a rack to cool.
Now you can start on the second layer. Mix up the powdered sugar and Byrd's custard powder. The Byrd's will make the filling an interesting butter-yellow colour.
Retrieve the measuing cup and put a 1/3 cup of butter in it. Melt it in the microwave. Once again, melted, but not hot.
Take out another smaller measuring cup and measure out 1/3 C of milk. Add the 1 tsp pf fior di sicilia to it. Add the mix to the powdered sugar and start mixing like mad. Then add the melted butter and keep mixing. You'll end up with darn close to buttercream frosting.
If the bottom layer is fully cooled, frost the layer with the mix. Otherwise, cover the bowl with some plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge. The bottom layer *has* to be cooled, or the second layer will melt right in. Not what you want.
Take the two layers and stick in the fridge for at least 45 minutes. You really want this cold for the final layer. Really. Use the time to clean things up.
Once you're sure that things have cooled down, take out another microwaveable bowl (see--if you have cleaned the other bowls, you can reuse!), another 4 TB of the butter, and the chocolate chips. Pour in the chips, and add in the butter in chunks.
Put the bowl into the microwave, and heat it about 20 seconds at a time. Take out the chocolate/butter mix, stir it, and put in back in until the chocolate is completely melted. It should act like somewhere between frosting and ganache.
Take the pan with the two layers out of the fridge, and add the chocolate to the top. If you're feeling like gilding the lily, you can chill the whole mixture and drizzle white chocolate over the top. If you're saving this for later, wrap up the whole beast in good quality plastic wrap or foil, and you can put it in the freezer until the morning of the potluck.
When it defrosts, either cut it in small (it may be close to cube-shaped if you cut it in 1 inch pieces) pieces, or let the engineers decide how wired they want to be that afternoon.
Watch your co-workers freak. Smile politely.