Is it even fall if you don’t bake something with pumpkin spice? # 420: Pumpkin Spice Nanaimo Bars

Raise your hand if you’d ever heard of a nanaimo bar? Bonus points if you knew there’s a whole town in Canada named Nanaimo and they’re VERY proud of the dessert? And that a nanaimo bar was featured in Canada’s “Sweet Canada” postage stamp collection? If you said yes to all of these, then congrats you know a lot about a very niche subject. You deserve a sweet treat!

Ok but can we go back to the fact that Canada did a dessert themed set of stamps! I don’t collect stamps but now I’m intrigued. What would a US dessert series include? Pecan pie and apple pie are musts, and maybe New York cheesecake and Boston cream pie. Ooo, chocolate chip cookies! I believe bananas foster began in the US as well. Nathan said jello salad, but *ahem* that’s a salad not a dessert, sir.

Alice Fevronia made these layered bars for the Canadian bake in her Around the World series earlier this year and it caught my eye. You’ve got three layers: ganache, fluffy custard buttercream and a mixture of crushed graham crackers, coconut, chocolate and nuts. The graham crackers pull a lot of the flavor weight in the bottom layer, which is surprising considering there’s chocolate and coconut involved.

While it’s technically a no-bake bb, you cook part of the base layer in a bain marie on the stove. But technically nothing goes in the oven, so there you go.

The chocolate glue for the base is like an enriched sabayon. In addition to the sugar and egg, there’s butter and chocolate making things interesting.

It’s giving chocolate granola.

Every recipe called for custard powder and of course it only called for a tiiiiny bit. Sigh. I didn’t want to mess with the chemistry of the classic version on the first try, so now I’m the not-so-proud owner a mostly full tub of Bird’s custard powder. From what I can tell, it’s instant pudding mix without sugar. Maybe I’ll just pull a Ruby Bhogal and drizzle instant custard on everything and call it a day!

Confession: I did make a few mostly cosmetic changes to the recipe:

• I mixed in a dollop of pumpkin for color and some Diaspora Co. chai masala for a PSL flavor
• I doubled the second layer to get the ratio of the layers closer to the picture used on the stamp, because… priorities
• I used sliced almonds and didn’t chop them any further (Less cosmetic and more lazy)

Should I make pumpkin pie oreos again this year? Or maybe a hand pie made with cinnamon sugar crust filled with a pumpkin custard and chocolate ganache? Can you tell I’m hungry right now? Never blog without a snack, folks.

Time for a fridge nap!

I popped some in the freezer to have in a few weeks and dare I say they’re yummier frozen than room temperature? Don’t tell any Nanaimoites.

Happy munching!

Recipe mostly from: https://www.nanaimo.ca/about-nanaimo/nanaimo-bars