Millionaire’s Shortbread

When I was a child I was only lucky enough to eat this type of shortbread at friends’ houses or birthday parties.   My mother always gave us healthy food.  Although we did get cakes and sweet things, they were always homemade and used as little sugar as possible, which I think in retrospect was  good thing.   This is something she would never have made and that made it an extra special treat whenever I got to have some.  I have to say, when making this I was rather shocked at the amount of butter and sugar it contains.  After melting the sugar and butter for the caramel, I tasted the condensed milk and discovered it was already very sweet.   Maybe I could have left out some of that extra sugar?  What would my mum think?   Mmmm maybe daughters do turn into their mothers.

Anyway, lets forget about all the sugar, this was absolutely delicious and I would like to send it to Chele at Chocolate Teapot for November’s We Should Cocoa Challenge, which was to make a recipe using caramel, as well as chocolate of course.

Ingredients

For the Shortbread Base

150g butter

75g caster sugar

250g plain flour

For the caramel

300g can of condensed milk

75g golden caster sugar

150g butter

For the Top

100g dark chocolate

1. Line a square tin with baking parchment.

2. Cream the sugar and butter together for the base.   Then add the flour and mix in till it forms a dough.

3. Put the dough into the baking tin and press down so it covers the whole of the base.   Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes at about 180°c.

4. To make the caramel, put the sugar and butter in a saucepan and heat. When the butter is melted and the sugar has dissolved, add the condensed milk.   Heat gently and stir continuously.  While stirring, let it boil gently for about 5 minutes but make sure it doesn’t burn.   It should gradually thicken.

5. Pour the caramel onto the shortbread base.   Leave to cool then put in the fridge to firm up.

6.  A couple of hours later, melt some chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water.   Pour onto the caramel and spread evenly.   I preferred dark chocolate for this as the caramel is very sweet but you could use milk.  Put back in the fridge to set.   Cut into small squares to serve.