Reverse Nanaimo Bars

Here is a unique twist on a popular classic: Reverse Nanaimo Bars. For those who aren't familiar with Nanaimo Bars, they are a popular Canadian confection named after their place of origin, Nanaimo, British Colombia. These are fairly easy, three-layer, no-bake squares. There are a few different recipe variations around for them, but they all have the same basic idea. They start with a chocolate base chock full of coconut, walnuts, and graham cracker crumbs. That is followed by a buttercream layer flavored with vanilla custard powder, and a smooth topping of melted semi-sweet chocolate. Custard powder was invented by a man who's wife adored custard, but she was allergic to eggs. So he came up with the powder. It can be tricky to find in some areas, but instant vanilla pudding can be used in place of it (I have even omitted it completely, the bars are still delicious!). Nanaimo bars are easy and quite visually appealing, the only drawback is that they must be prepared in three stages, and refrigerated after each one. The only lengthy part of the preparation is the chilling. It is a good recipe to make when you have several small chunks of time on your hands instead of one big one. 
In this variation, instead of the usual white layer between two chocolate, there is a chocolate layer between two white. The base is pretty much the same, except in place of cocoa powder, there is melted white chocolate. The middle still contains custard powder, but also has the addition of cocoa. And the top is simply melted white chocolate, with a semi-sweet chocolate drizzle for a little extra garnish. I really like traditional Nanaimo Bars, but this twist was nice for a change, it was something different and was still very tasty.
These squares turned out nice and sweet, without being too rich. They are easy to cut and store, and surprisingly the chocolate topping did not crack. The flavors of white chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate work very well together.