Chocolate Caramel Shortbread

Chocolate caramel shortcake, also known as millionaire’s shortbread, or billionaire’s shortbread, is a deliciously simple tea time treat – with gooey caramel and chocolate layered on top of homemade shortbread.

I have a boyfriend who looooves chocolate caramel shortcake more than possibly anything else in the world, and he also loves Cadbury Top Deck – a type of Cadbury chocolate that was withdrawn from the UK market in the early 90s (but is still sold in other countries) – featuring milk chocolate and white chocolate. So I set out to make a chocolate caramel shortbread to replicate top deck!

You can easily customise chocolate caramel shortbread to the tastes of yourself or the people you’re making it for – get really creative with it! Here are some other great ideas –

• Cookie Dough chocolate caramel shortbread
• Salted Caramel chocolate shortbread
• Or for festive variations, add a layer of red or green Wilton candy melts on top of your chocolate layer

Recipe adapted from How to be a domestic goddess

• 175g unsalted butter
• 75g caster sugar
• 225g plain flour

First, preheat your oven to 170C/gas 4/350F, then let’s make shortbread! Either by hand or in a mixer, combine your very soft butter and sugar, and then add the flour until the mixture comes together in a soft sandy dough. Bring it together with your hands, and then flatten into a greased pan – I used one that was 7 x 9 inches, and anything around that size would work.

Bake your shortbread in the middle of your oven for 5 minutes, and then turn the temperature down to 150C/gas 3/300F and bake for a further 30 – 40 minutes. Once the shortbread is golden, remove from the oven and allow to cool.

To make the caramel, you’ll need –

• 200g unsalted butter
• a large (394g) tin of condensed milk
• 4 tablespoons golden syrup

Combine them all in a large microwaveable container or bowl and stir thoroughly. Microwave on high heat for 6-7 minutes at 45 second intervals, removing and stirring thoroughly after each 45 seconds. Be very careful as the mixture will be massively hot.

Pour the molten caramel over the shortbread, and pop into the fridge to set. After 30 minutes, melt 200g of milk or plain chocolate (I used Cadbury Dairy Milk for the top deck combo, but most recipes use plain chocolate to counteract the massive sweetness of the caramel), and use a palette knife or the back of a spoon to spread it out on top of the caramel. Allow to cool for 5 minutes, and then melt 200g of white chocolate, and spread that out on top of the milk chocolate. Allow to set in the fridge for 3 hours or overnight, before cutting into small squares.

This is one of those strange treats that gets better after a few days as the flavours have time to combine. Perfect for an indulgent afternoon treat.

x Kerry

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