Nanaimo Bars

When I first got married, my mom and aunt put together a recipe box. The asked the guests at each of my showers to give me a few of their favorite family traditions. Fabulous idea, right? I will do a bonus blog post about it. This is one of the recipes that came from this box. It is out of my husband’s Aunt Cari’s home. It has ties to Young Life, as does she, so I’m curious if it is the recipe that Young Life uses at Camp Malibu or the state fair recipe. I’m not sure, but it’s delicious. My husband doesn’t like coconut or nuts in recipes and yet he loves these. Me too. 

Nanaimo Bars

Bottom Layer:
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
4 T unsweetened cocoa powser
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

2 cups crushed graham crackers
1 cup coconut
1/2 cups crushed nuts

Combine and melt butter, sugar and cocoa powder in the top of a double boiler. Add 1 beaten egg, miking well and cooking for about 1 minute. Add 1 tsp vanilla. Mix together crushed graham crackers, coconut and chopped nuts (I like to chop mine fine). Pour original mixture in and mix all together. Pat down, firmly, in a greased 9×13″ pan.

Icing:
4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup soft butter
1/2 cup cream or milk
4 Tbsp instant vanilla pudding (dry powder)

Cream all icing ingredients together until thick and spread on top of the first layer. This is thick and difficult to spread. You can add water to your spatula to aid in the process. Refrigerate 2-3 hours.

Top Chocolate Layer::
6 ounces semisweet chocolate
4 Tbsp butter

After the bars have spent their 2-3 hours in the refrigerator, melt the chocolate and butter together in a double boiler. Spread quickly over top. Refrigerate until solid. 

Bottom Layer:

If you start them young, kids can actually be extremely helpful in the kitchen – speeding you up rather than slowing you down. As I was mixing this on the stove, Kenzie was breaking all of the graham crackers into the food processor. 

Middle Layer: