It’s time for the Daring Bakers again, and while this month’s challenge presented its own obstacles, It had the advantage over last month’s challenge for me by 1) Taking only a reasonable amount of time, 2) Not leaving my entire house covered in royal icing and 3) resulting in something that I would actually like to eat. Wait, maybe that last one isn’t such a good thing. My thighs aren’t thanking me for these suckers. (Fortunately, my husband’s colleagues are — thank goodness for willing recipients of sugary treats).

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.

If you’ve never heard of Nanaimo bars, they’re as fun to eat as they are to say (they’re pronounced nuh NIE mo). A local specialty invented in Nanaimo, British Columbia (Lauren chose them in honor of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver), they are relatively easy to assemble (if you don’t make your own graham crackers). The bottom is a rich crumb crust flavored with cocoa, coconut and nuts, topped with a sweet icing layer and finally a chocolate ganache. To spice things up, and because I had some hazelnuts I wanted to use, I elected to make chocolate hazelnut nanaimo bars, using toasted hazelnuts in the bottom layer and making a nutella flavored icing for the middle layer. They were incredibly rich, incredibly sweet, and a little addictive.

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