Here’s Gav’s recent dessert obsession (and so is mine but that is as much as my ADDD – attention deficit disorder for Dessert – allows…
Ever since I created this recipe I’ve been making small-batch after small-batch of these delightful cups. We love to enjoy them after WFH lunches that we have together.
They came out so perfect, I regrettably invite you to officially disregard my previous attempt at Nanaimo bars because as I said in the “story” I made those without having ever tasted an OG Nanaimo bar.
Until one of my colleagues at Google moved to his homeland British Columbia and came back to visit the office. The generous fellow dessert lover that he is, brought us all some OG, real-deal Nanaimo bars and butter tarts.
The moment the bars touched my lips I knew my recipe did not do justice to the glory that this Nanaimo treasure was. So I brought back a slice home, just to reverse engineer.
I may not have disclosed my grand plans when I grabbed my second slice, but fellow engineer should understand the instinct, am i right? Well so I assumed.
I started with the recipe I linked above but gave them a slight MBB touch, added some cream cheese to the frosting and made the pudding mix optional, which introduced lovely cheesecake vibes while cutting down on powdered sugar and making a one-off ingredient (the pudding mix) optional…
Trust me you won’t tell the diff. In fact, we argue my version is an improvement.
You can of course add the pudding mix and use heavy cream or whole milk instead of cream cheese.
Either way, try the recipe and let me know what you think! I would be so excited to hear from you on this one!
Small-batch No-bake Nanaimo Cups
Equipment
- Muffin pan, or small loaf pan
Ingredients
Cookie bar layer
- 1/4 cup (vegan) butter, melted (56 g) coconut oil might work
- 1/2 cup cookies, crushed (50 g) vegan/gf if desired
- 1/4 cup flaked (or shredded) coconut (20 g)
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder (6 g)
- pinch of salt
Frosting layer
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar (60 g)
- 1/4 cup (vegan) cream cheese (30 g) soften in room temp or 5-10 sec in the microwave
- 1/2 tbsp (optional) sugar-free instant vanilla pudding mix (4 g) sub drop of vanilla extract
Chocolate layer
- 1/4 cup chocolate chips (45 g)
- 1 tbsp (vegan) butter or coconut oil (14 g)
Instructions
- In a bowl microwave to melt your butter and add other ingredients to form a cookie base. Press about 1 heaping tbsp into each muffin cavity. Freeze about 30 min to set.
- In a small bowl mix together powder sugar, softened cream cheese and optional pudding mix (sub a drop of vanilla extract if you prefer to omit this ingredient). Stir to turn this into something spreadable like frosting. Adjust with more cream cheese or powder sugar to hit the frosting consistency.
- Spread about 1 tbsp frosting on each muffin cavity. Freeze another 30 min to set.
- Add chocolate and butter in a bowl and microwave in 30 sec increments to melt and combine. Pour about 1 tbsp chocolate on each muffin cavity and freeze a few more minutes to set the chocolate.
- Keep refrigerated or frozen, if frozen thaw gently before enjoying!
Notes
- If this portion size is too big for you, we’ve also loved these as mini cups. The recipe should make 12.
- I made them as cups since they’re so cute and then you avoid slicing but go ahead and line a small loaf pan or square dish to make them as bars.