Nainoma Bars

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I’ve been baking a lot lately, the kitchen is my space to be creative, away from work, Uni and other stressors. I love finding a new recipe and trying it out. Especially ones that are a little bit different, like this one.

If I’m honest, I would say that the first thing that attracted me to this slice was the name of it. Nainoma Bars, where did that come from? The recipe tells me that the slice is also known as Continental Fudge, but I like Nainoma Bars much better. My Mum had a couple of recipes books out on the coffee table, and I was flicking through them and came across this slice. I’ve been a little obsessed with the chocolate-coconut combo lately, to the point where I’ve developed my own ‘Chocolate Rough’ muffin recipe. I’m still in the developing stages of this, but it is tasting pretty good. Anyway, this slice also had custard in it (another winner in my books) so I had to try it out.

This slice is quite sweet, so you only want a small piece at a time, but it went down a treat with my family. I cut my batch into 60 pieces, so there’s plenty to go round. Another thing I like about this recipe is that it involves no actually cooking time, which means that you can make it as you have time. I made the first two layers, had to go out for an hour, then came home and finished it off.

Nainoma Bars (aka Continental Fudge)

Base

115g butter

¼ cup sugar

3 Tbsp cocoa

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla essence

200g crushed malt biscuits (though I imagine wine biscuits would work too, throw them into the food processer to do this quickly)

Filling

55g butter

2 cups icing sugar

2 Tbsp custard powder

2 Tbsp hot water

Topping

150g dark chocolate (I used 62% cocoa)

1 Tbsp butter

1.     Line a shallow 30cm x 21cm tin with baking paper.

2.     For the base: Melt the butter and add sugar and cocoa, mixing together. Add the beaten egg, then the vanilla essence, crushed biscuits and coconut. Press into prepared tin and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3.     For the filling: Cream softened butter with the sifted icing sugar, custard powder and hot water. Spread over the chilled base and return the refrigerator.

4.     For the topping: Melt and chocolate and butter in the microwave (30 second bursts at medium) and spread over the custard mixture.

5.     Refrigerate for another hour and cut into small squares. I recommend a hot knife to avoid cracking the chocolate topping. I cut mine into 60 squares, but you can make them bigger or smaller according to your own preferences. Store in the fridge.

Recipe taken from Ladies, A Plate: Traditional Home Baking by Alexa Johnston.

So if you have a bit of a sweet tooth I would recommend trying this one out.

Happy baking!

H xo