BAKE: PEANUT BUTTER NANAIMO BARS

Since Nanaimo is only a hour and a half away I should be pretty pro at making their famous Nanaimo bars. Every restaurant has their own version of a Nanaimo bar as a dessert/treat and man are they EVER GOOD! But I like to eat the sin free type so my waste line doesn't get mad at me and so my health stays top notch. So I came up with this recipe to please you all. My family loved these and so did Tod's best friend Steve, who is a peanut butter fanatic!

PEANUT BUTTER NANAIMO BARS

Ingredients:

Base

• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 3/4 cup graham crackers, gluten-free
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup raw nuts, such as walnut or almonds

Grind graham crackers into crumbs in your food processor or just crumble them by hand. Also grind the nuts and shredded coconut down in your food processor or cut into fine crumbs. Melt coconut oil in a warm pan. You can heat the pan on the stove and then take it off the heat, add the coconut oil and let it slowly melt. Add all the ingredients to a large bowl and mix together. Line a square baking dish with parchment paper (this is a must) and pour the base into the dish and push down firmly with the back of a spoon or your fingers. Freeze for an hour and then move on to the middle peanut butter layer.

I didn't pack my base down hard enough so mine crumbled a little bit but it still turned out amazing.

Middle Layer

• 1/3 cup peanut butter
• 1 tsp. coconut oil
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. maple syrup

Again, warm the pan up the same way as you did in the first step. Then take it off the heat and add your middle ingredients and stir well. Once it is fully mixed and smooth, pour onto your base and freeze again for another hour.

Top Layer

• 2/3 cup dark chocolate chips
• 4 tsp. coconut oil

(Sorry I forgot to take more pictures of these layers as I added them. Busy mom!)

For this last step you can melt a dark chocolate bar if you have that at home instead of chocolate chips. Melt these two ingredients in a pan, like before, and then pour on top of your peanut butter layer, turned the pan so the chocolate runs to each corner, covering the whole thing. Place back into the freezer and freeze for 2 hours. Make sure you cover in a freezer safe zip-lock bag after the two hours are up. I take it out of the dish and leave in the parchment paper. 

Take out of the freezer 10 minutes before cutting. Then cut with a sharp knife, on an angle, into squares. Serve frozen!

In this picture are my Hazelnut Truffles and my Walnut Fudge with the Peanut Butter Naniamo Bars.