Culinary and baking students at Nanaimo’s Vancouver Island University are going all out to claim a world record they feel rightfully belongs to the city.
The students want to make the world’s biggest Nanaimo bar — that rich and chocolatey, no-bake, three-layer sweet delicacy that its namesake city has embraced as its own for decades.
The world record belongs to the Gorham family from Levack, Ont., who, in 2020, made a 530-pound Nanaimo bar slab, eight feet long, 44 inches wide and three inches thick.
But VIU students want to go further — much further — into that super sugar rush, world-record territory.
Students are planning to make a 1,100 pounder, 70 feet long, three feet wide and about three inches thick.
They are enlisting carpentry students at VIU to make the form, set up on tables, and have a fundraising effort underway around an unveiling event on May 17 to raise money to buy new ovens for the culinary, baking and pastry programs at the university.
Aron Weber, who heads the baking and pastry arts programs at VIU, said the idea originally started as a plan for an event that would foster a new business for some of the baking diploma students, but it snowballed to something bigger.
“It was at that time we discovered the Nanaimo bar record was in Ontario and it planted the seed that we wanted to bring that record home to Nanaimo,” said Weber. “So, it’s a big project by the students, driven by them, and we have some great sponsors to help us get there.”
To get an idea of what’s required to make their world record, here’s what the students will need:
277.6 pounds of butter
151 pounds of dark chocolate
171.6 pounds of graham cracker crumbs
62.6 pounds of coconut
25 pounds of custard powder
46.4 pounds of cocoa powder
46.4 pounds of sugar
201 pounds of confectioners’ sugar
44.9 pounds of eggs – pasteurized
29.4 pounds of whipping cream
46.4 pounds of slivered almonds
Weber said the recipe for the record-breaking bar will be based on “original recipes found here in Nanaimo. There are a couple of them out there and we’re trying to be authentic as we can.”
That includes keeping the big slab consistent in layers and thickness.
“We didn’t want to go really thick just to make the weight to make the record,” he said. “We still want to make it something people know and enjoy as a Nanaimo bar when we do cut it up and serve it to the public.”
The base of graham-cracker crumbs, cocoa powder, nuts and coconut, and the middle layer of custard-powder-flavoured buttercream will be prepared ahead of the event and spread out on the forms while the chocolate topping will be poured last.
The Nanaimo bar has a long and kind of foggy history.
Times Colonist food writer and chef Eric Akis said his sources suggest the earliest confirmed printed recipe for Nanaimo bars appeared in the 14th edition of Edith Adams’ cookbook, published in 1953, a copy of which is enshrined at the Nanaimo Museum.
In a 2012 story, Vancouver Sun reporter Randy Shore said Edith Adams was an institution at the paper for three- quarters of a century, though she was the invention of an editor in 1924, and given life by generations of reporters and editors who provided sage advice, homemaking tips and recipes.
Akis said the 1952 Women’s Auxiliary to the Nanaimo Hospital Cookbook, a collection of recipes from city residents, had a recipe featuring the ingredients and technique used for Nanaimo bars, although it was called “chocolate square.”
The unbaked confection has also been called New York slice, Mabel’s squares, prayer Bars and London fog.
The Nanaimo bar gained traction at Expo 86, the same year then-Nanaimo mayor Graeme Roberts held a contest to find the ultimate recipe. It attracted nearly 100 entries, and the winner was Joyce Hardcastle.
In 2019, the Nanaimo bar was featured on a Canada Post stamp as part of a regional dessert series that also included Saskatoon berry pie and butter tarts. though the rendition of the Nanaimo bar was criticized as having a middle layer that appeared too thick.
Weber said he’s excited about what the fundraising event will bring.
“I fully expect people to come out of the woodwork as we do this,” he said. “Lots of people have histories about the Nanaimo bar. In Nanaimo, it’s something people take pride in.”
Tourism Nanaimo promotes the dessert with a dedicated Nanaimo Bar Trail, listing dozens of bakeries, restaurants and makers throughout the city who serve various versions.
Stevie, 62, the owner of Red’s Bakery on Commercial Street in downtown Nanaimo, said she has been making Nanaimo bars since she was nine in her mother’s kitchen. She continues to use her mom’s recipe, though now she tweaks her bars to also include raspberry, peppermint, peanut butter, espresso and chocolate orange versions, among others.
Stevie said she can sell up to 200 slices a day in the summer and during the shoulder months up to 75. She also makes bars for bed and breakfast operations, which serve them to guests.
She has no idea where the recipe originates. Her grandmother emigrated to Canada from England in 1910 and brought the recipe with her, but where the technique and ingredients actually started “is anyone’s guess.”
Red’s Bakery was selected by Tourism Nanaimo to prepare Nanaimo bars for a visiting cruise ship this month.
Weber said VIU’s bid for a world record won’t involve the famous Guinness Book of World Records, and instead will be certified by the Baking Association of Canada and the Culinary Federation of Canada.
“Guinness is one of the authorities for records in the world, but not the end all,” he said. “We did engage them at the beginning of this project, but it didn’t really go with the spirit of what we were trying to do.
“It would have been cost prohibitive. We wouldn’t have been able to raise that much money if we went with Guinness, just with the licensing. It was decided it wasn’t the best approach for the school to use them as certification.”
For information and sponsors involved with the Nanaimo bar event, see https://events.viu.ca/worlds-largest-nanaimo-bar.
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