Nanaimo Bars aka Caramel Slice

Last Thursday was Canada Day - one of my friends organised a surprise party on the Saturday for her Canadian husband, and we all celebrated by bringing along and then consuming vast quantities of food. There was a moose-mousse cake, maple bacon cookies, Canadian Dry ginger ale, turkey sandwiches, salmon bagels, pumpkin pie, and so much more.

My contribution was the Nanaimo Bar. Allegedly a Canadian specialty, I suspect it is nothing more or less than a good old Ausssie caramel slice!



The traditional recipe calls for Graham Wafers which are not sold in Australia or most places outside North America. The original recipe has instructions on making these from scratch. Being too lazy to do the same, I followed the lead of cooks around the world and used a local substitute, which I crushed to crumbs in a sealed plastic bag with a rolling pin.

Digestive biscuits of any kind are fine; I used Arnotts Granita, which has a marginally lower sugar content and a rougher texture than similar biscuits like the Milk Arrowroot. Some blogs have also suggested it's possible to use half tea sweet biscuit or digestive, and half a salty biscuit or even pretzels - given how strong and sweet the caramel layer is, I think a half salty mix would work really well.


Base:
115gram unsalted butter
50gram granulated sugar
75ml unsweetened cocoa
1 large egg, beaten
200gram Graham Wafer crumbs (see above)
1/2 cup almonds (any type, finely chopped)
1 cup dessicated coconut

Caramel:
2 cans condensed milk (about 800 ml)
30 gram unsalted butter
3 tbsp golden syrup

Topping:
150 gram semi-sweet chocolate (I used 85% Lindt and it was awesome)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter


BASE: Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 degrees Celsius fan-forced). Melt unsalted butter, sugar and cocoa in top of a double boiler. Add egg and stir to cook and thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, nuts and coconut. Press firmly into an ungreased 8 by 8 inch pan. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned and slightly risen. Remove it from oven and let it cool.


CARAMEL: Place butter and golden syrup in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally. When butter has melted, add condensed milk. Stir constantly over medium heat for about 9-12 minutes, until caramel thickens. Gently spread caramel evenly over base. Return to oven for a further 10-12 minutes (a 1/2cm border of lightly browned caramel should form around the edges of the slice).

This was the absolute messiest step by far - condensed milk is NOT a nice texture to work with and the whole kitchen was just sticky and sickly-sweet smelling, ugh. Also, I tried to be smart and used maple syrup instead of golden syrup. This turned out to be a fail because the maple crystallised instead of blending! I had to sieve the hard bits out before I could pour the caramel on to the base, which of course didn't help with the messiness...


TOPPING: Melt chocolate and unsalted butter over low heat. Cool. Once cool, pour over middle layer and chill.

Consider scoring the chocolate when it's semi-solid to enable easier cutting later. I didn't, and mine cracked all over the place!

Use a hot, dry knife to cut the slice - fill a tall glass with hot water, dip knife in water for a few seconds, and wipe dry with a clean tea towel.


From A table for two