Minty Nanaimo Bar Recipe (2024)

By Joybilee Farm 3 Comments

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Minty Nanaimo Bar Recipe

Minty Nanaimo Bars are a Canadian treat that speaks of Christmas. They are perfect to make ahead and store in the freezer for when unexpected guests show.

This is the final week of International Cookie Month, where we focus on cookies that can be made ahead now and served later. This saves time when the crunch is on and gives us a freezer full of delicious treats that we can pull out when unexpected company comes. While this strategy is useful any time of the year, this season from November 1st to mid-January seems especially conducive to make ahead baking and unexpected company.

Today I’m sharing one of my family’s favourite Christmas treats – My Minty Nanaimo Bar recipe. The combination of mint and dark chocolate is Christmas at its best. And my recipe won’t have you running to the store for cookie crumbs before you can make them. You can even print the recipe out now to make later, using the print feature in my recipe widget.

The flavours of Christmas

Warm, dark chocolate and cooling mint remind me of Christmas. When I was a child the After Eight mints came in a personal package in my Christmas stocking, along with the Lifesavers candy book, a Japanese orange, and a quarter, stuck in the toe. I savoured the minty chocolate for days afterward, that is if my Mom didn’t insist I share with all her friends who came to drink at our house. Like Charlie, in the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, chocolate was an expensive treat that I liked to suck slowly, savouring for as long as possible.

When I had my own children, chocolate and especially mint chocolate, along with an orange, a looney, and a candy cane were essentials in the Christmas stockings. (A looney is the Canadian version of a silver dollar.)

Traditional Nanaimo bars, another Canadian invention, have a chocolate cookie crumb crust, a vanilla cream centre, topped with milk chocolate. My version is made from scratch, so there is no need to run to the grocery store and pick up chocolate wafers, nor custard powder, before making this deliciously rich treat. The chocolate topping is a combination of dark chocolate and white chocolate, I used Roger’s dark and white specialty chocolate. Feel free to use your favourite brand of chocolate – you’ll need 4 to 8 ounces, depending on how thick you like your chocolate. I replaced the vanilla custard powder with potato starch, tapioca starch, vanilla and peppermint flavouring extracts. Go easy on the peppermint or you’ll get a bitter aftertaste, in the bar.

This bar is easy to put together and you can make it now and slice it and store it in the freezer to serve during the holidays. If you double the recipe make two pans rather than 1 large pan. It’s easier to cut and serve that way.

A word about the natural food colouring

I was aiming for a bright minty green colour in the filling. Using India Tree natural dye food colouring, and using equal portions of blue and yellow, I was able to achieve an olive green colour, in this recipe. It took 2 tsp of each colour – about ½ the bottle. I added more yellow and lost the green completely. The food colouring is optional. But if you choose to colour it with India Tree naturally dyed food colours, consider just going with a bright yellow as the olive green wasn’t as appetizing in this bar.

The blue in this product is pH sensitive and acid will shift the colour from blue to reddish-purple if it’s used with acid food like lemon juice, orange juice, or vinegar. This means that green may be elusive if the other ingredients in your recipe are acidic.

While I loved the idea of using natural food colourings way more than the carcinogenic coal tar food colourings that are approved by the FDA, there is some compromise in both colour intensity and shade when working with natural colours in food. But I personally think the trade-off is worth the inconvenience. It’s a matter of retraining our sensibilities to a different standard of beauty – one of health and nutrition, rather than chemical dependency. Whether you use the food colourings or not is up to you.

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