A classic of Canada’s west coast comes to Tree Town
When it comes to Nanaimo bars, most Americans don’t know them. In Canada, by contrast, they’re a national classic. If you, like most in the U.S., haven’t had one, broadcaster Karin Larsen described them for the CBC as a “grahamy-coconutty-custardy-chocolate-no-bake treat.”
The bars are named after the British Columbian town of Nanaimo, a port city on Vancouver Island that’s roughly the same size as Ann Arbor. Nanaimo’s focus has long been coal mining, as well as all the activity around the harbor. Though Nanaimo bars were first recognized in a print recipe in 1953, they were being made for quite a while without an actual written recipe. In a 2014 paper for Canadian Food Studies entitled “Notes from the Nanaimo bar trail,” Lenore Lauri Newman explores the bar’s murky origins, concluding that, most likely, the bar began its life in Nanaimo in the late 1940s.
Over the years, Nanaimo bars have been served at state dinners and in probably well over half the homes in Canada. In 2019, they even earned a postage stamp, prompting Larsen to write, “Now here’s a stamp you wouldn’t mind licking if stamps were still lickable!” In the same article, restaurateur George Kulai, who moved to the town of Nanaimo a little over 20 years ago, says the bar is “a piece of Canadiana and a wonderful honor for anyone who’s ever made Nanaimo bars here in Nanaimo and contributed to the legend.”
Nanaimo bars are so iconic in Canada that in 2022, the National Post ran a headline about national election tension: “Conservative leadership race descends into argument over Nanaimo bars.” And back in 2006, the same publication featured an article entitled “Democracy never tasted so delicious”:
Canadians have spoken, and they’d like you to pass the Nanaimo bars. Thanks in part to a heartwarming display of civic pride, the little dessert bar that could can now proudly call itself Canada’s Favourite Confection.
That’s right—a national confection election chose Nanaimo bars as the country’s favorite.
At the Bakehouse, Nanaimo bars are (a) delicious and (b) a salute to Co-Managing Partner Amy Emberling’s Canadian roots (she hails from Nova Scotia).
The Bakehouse version has a chocolate-coconut base, a filling made with the British Commonwealth favorite Bird’s Custard, and a really luscious chocolate ganache—chilled and sliced into lovely-looking layered treats!
We’re making them for the rest of the month, so swing by and score some Nanaimo bars soon! As Amy says, “No celebration spread would be complete without them.”
