As you may have heard, Alberto's IMBB phenomenon has had two very recent spin-offs: the first, a successful endeavor by none other than Lenn of Lenndevours, proving a new and delicious wine-tasting each month (I certainly didn't need another excuse to drink wine, but it is fun nonetheless!) and my own IMBB production: SHF:ISTBE!

This being the inaugural edition and I decided we should start it off right, with a confusing but usually quite delicious little confection, known near and far as WHITE CHOCOLATE.

What to do, what to do. Until the last year I hadn't been a big fan of white chocolate; my mom had ingrained into me that it wasn't chocolate, it didn't taste like chocolate and therefore should be shunned. "Push those bars of white chocolate to the back of your baking cupboard, Jennifer, and bring forth the dark, mysterious, beautiful REAL chocolate and enjoy! Go forth and bake cookies and cakes and brownies and pies! Dark chocolate reigns supreme!" My mom is really just a little baking Hitler.

Uh. Yeah. Then, back in February I slipped. I made a White Chocolate Truffle Cake for SuperBowl Sunday; a beautiful concoction that got the majority of it's filling and icing's billowy white tastiness from none other than the evil white chocolate. The cake was a huge hit, even with my mother and I was no longer feeling the urge to veer away from white chocolate. Heck, I'm even thinking of concocting some sort of white chocolate fondant icing for my wedding cake... but that's yet another story.

So. For the SHF:ISTBE? What was I going to do? I thought about the cake from February...but that's no fun, you can't remake an old dessert for the premiere of your own blogging event. No. I thought of a cake I regularly make with chocolate chips and thought of subbing in white chocolate chips. Nah, not exciting enough. Cookies? Pie? Bars? Hmmm. Bars. Yes. I like bars. And the weather is starting to turn to real fall weather and it just feels like bars weather around here. You know, bars for brown-bagged lunches for the kiddies with their newly sharpened pencils..that feeling. Okay, so what kind of white chocolate bars could I make?

I flipped through cookbooks and searched the internet. I found nothing. Well, I found a few things but they weren't quite "right". Then it hit me: my mom makes the most delicious Nanaimo Bars: a cakey brownie base, an nice light layer of icing and then topped with melted and then chilled unsweetened chocolate. Yum. Uh...one problem: no white chocolate (the tyrant!). Okay, so I'll make it up! I will come up with my OWN recipe! Yes.

So here it is. My own gorgeously seductive, nuttily tasty, absolutely decadent: White Chocolate and Pecan Nanaimo Bars. Oh my goodness, these are quite sinful.

I hope everyone has enjoyed baking their own sweet treasures with white chocolate! Be sure to drop me an email with a link to your entry so I can do a round-up list tomorrow. Enjoy!

 

Recipe