Saturday 30 January 2010

Daring Bakers January Challenge



Nanaimo Bars!

This was our first try at anything of this sort, so very much enjoyed ourselves. The Crackers (made before hand) did not come out entirely as expected if i'm honest, so i must confess we bought some old fashioned gluten-containing digestive biscuits (British equivalent of Graham Crackers, I'm assured) just to do a test batch with them and see how it came out! Having done this, we were actually reassured we were on the right track in the first place (they are supposed to be cheesecake-base like and crumbly, right?) and set about constructing bars.

Assembly went together very well indeed - the chocolate top layer was perhaps a bit stickier and not as shiny as we would have liked when it went on (left it to cool for too long i think), but other than that, very do-able!

And the verdict? Well, they all got eaten so must have been fine! If we did a similar thing again we wonder if we'd reduce the sugar slightly (ours came out perhaps slightly too sweet) and we have a request to make a non-coconut version by a family member who loathes the stuff, but that is surely possible and definitely something to try!

The base in progress


Vanilla Custard layer coming together


Finished article for chilling - chocolate possibly a tad over-cooled


And then done!




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.

Monday 4 January 2010

Daring Bakers Beginning

Just got the registration sorted for the Daring Bakers - very exciting. ALso, a gluten-free challenge which is interesting as it's something neither of us have done much of before, but have quite a few coeliacs/gluten intolerant people amoungst our family and friends so very prepared to give it a go!

I might over the next day or so decorate this with a few photos of our previous cooking or crafted bits and pieces, so people can see what we've done in the past/