Happy (belated) Canada Day!

Happy belated Canada Day everyone!  I hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable weekend filled with lots of maple syrup and other sorts of veganized Canadiana food.  Myself, I decided to try my hands at veganizing Nanaimo Bars, a tasty bar that hails from the opposite coast of this great country.

I used the recipe that madcap cupcake used but made a few changes. For instance, I omitted the walnuts and coconut because I didn’t remember having those in the Nanaimo Bars of my childhood but maybe I just wasn’t very observant back then.

Nanaimo Bars

Ingredients

For the bottom layer:
1/2 cup earth balance
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/4 cup soy yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups crushed graham crackers or crumbs

For the middle layer:
1/4 cup earth balance (or other vegan margarine)
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tbsp vanilla custard powder (Bird’s)
3 tbsp plain soy milk

For the top layer:
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
1 tbsp earth balance

To make the bars

To make bottom layer:
1. Grease or line with parchment paper a 9-inch square cake pan.
2. In a sauce pan over low heat, combine 1/2 cup earth balance, sugar, cocoa, and vanilla . Add soy yogurt and stir constantly until the mixture thickens.
3. Add to this mixture, the graham crackers crumbs and stir to combine.
4. Press this mixture into the pan.

To make middle layer:
1. In a large bowl, beat together 1/4 cup earth balance, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla custard powder, and soy milk until creamy.
2. Spread custard mixture over the bottom layer in pan. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.

To make top layer:
1. Melt chocolate and 1 tbsp earth balance together in a double boiler.
2. Pour over chilled bars and spread over top. Return to refrigerator to chill until firm (at least an hour).

Once chilled, cut them up and enjoy when you want to celebrate Canada! 🙂

PS-madcap cupcake has a great tip for achieving perfectly cut bars. Simply score the bars after 10 minutes of the final chilling phase, it makes it much easier to cut the bars cleanly afterwards!