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.I was very excited for this challenge! As a Canadian, I have eaten Nanaimo bars all my life. I also have 2 residents at the retirement home I work at who have Celiac disease. So I knew just who to make my Nanaimo bars for.
Step one was to go out and buy the gluten-free flours I needed. This turned out to be much easier than I expected! One quick trip to Old Fashioned Foods and less than $8 later, I had my flours!
I quickly whipped up the graham cracker dough. This was a beautiful dough. I expected stickier given the instructions in the recipe, but I thought it was just perfect. I used real butter, not margarine, so my dough only needed about half an hour in the fridge. I cut out my crackers and tossed them in the fridge before baking them. I didn't worry about getting them all the same size as I knew I was just grinding them up after. In future, I'd probably not even bother cutting them - I'd just roll the dough out, bake it, break it into chunks, and grind it.
I probably should have baked mine for 5-10 minutes less than the recipe said. They weren't burnt, but I would say there were a touch bit overbaked. They tasted ok when done, but definitely had that gluten-free texture. For those who have never eaten gluten-free baked goods before, I'd describe it as the feeling of sand on your tongue. It's due to the different texture of flours not made from wheat.
Once my crackers were done, I threw them in the RoboCoupe and very shortly had graham crumbs. I then whipped up my Nanaimo bars quickly and was done!
Thanks for the challenge - my two residents were very pleased to have a "regular" dessert for once. In fact, I think they had a better dessert than what I had made for the rest of the group!
