Easy Millionaire’s Shortbread

Finally another sweet recipe! I never get much time to do these at uni, and I find it difficult to justify baking to myself – ingredients cost a lot, and I’m left with a whole tray of treats that I can’t eat alone. So I’ve found that if I want to bake, it’s definitely best to enlist some flatmate or other to chip in and share the goods.

I think that Millionaire’s Shortbread is often seen as quite tricky to make, most likely because of all the different layers and the involvement of caramel. In actuality, this was one of the recipes I tried with the fewest ingredients, all which were easy to source and probably hanging around if you’ve baked before.

The caramel didn’t present too much of a challenge, but it was hot work stirring it for so long over a hot stove – a job to rotate with friends!

The pay off was insane – the layer ratios were spot on, the shortbread was good, and it actually didn’t go stale for a while when stored in an air tight container. Pretty impressive dessert I think.

Here’s the recipe, from BBC Good Food’s ‘Easy Millionaire’s Shortbread Recipe’.

Ingredients:

For the shortbread…

• 250g plain flour
• 75g caster sugar
• 175g salted butter, softened

For the caramel…

• 100g butter or margarine
• 100g light muscavado sugar (we used light brown sugar – it only seemed to change the colour of the caramel, and was perhaps slight grittier – but this might have been the technique haha)
• 2 x 397g tins of condensed milk

For the topping…

• 200g of chocolate, milk or plain – would recommend plain as this treat is sweet enough. Also, depending on how thick you want the top layer to be, perhaps add some more!

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan. Lightly grease your baking tray – this should be a large rectangle, roughly 33cm x 23cm, and fairly deep (for all the layers!).
2. The first step is to make the shortbread. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, then add the softened butter in chunks. Use your fingertips to rub the ingredients in together, until they resemble breadcrumbs.
3. When you are satisfied with your combining skills, push the breadcrumbs into a dough, and then press your dough into the base of the tin. Make sure it is evenly distributed, and does not go up the side of the tin, to avoid the edges catching.
4. Prick the shortbread with a fork, and pop in the oven. It should take roughly 20mins to bake, but you may want to keep an eye on it – if it’s a thin layer, it may be done faster than this. Watch the colour – once it is golden brown, it is ready to take out. Leave in the tin to cool.
5. Whilst the shortbread makes, you can begin to make the caramel. Tip all the caramel ingredients into a saucepan. Heat them gently, until the sugar has dissolved, stirring a little.
6. Now comes the tricky bit. Bring the caramel to the boil, and then reduce the heat and leave to simmer. All the while you must continuously stir, to ensure that the sugar doesn’t have a chance to crystallise. This reduces the likelihood of a grainy caramel. After about 5-10mins the caramel should be ready. You can check by dropping a little into a glass of cold water, to see if it crystallises – if it does, it is ready.
7. Now pour the mixture onto the cooled shortbread, again making sure it is evenly distributed. Leave to cool. We popped ours in the fridge, and it took quite a long time to be cool.
8. Whilst waiting for the caramel to cool, melt your chocolate. It is a good idea to break it up into squares first. Use the bain marie method – place a heatproof bowl over a pan of boiled water, and stir until melted.
9. When the caramel has cooled, pour the chocolate over, and leave to set. For us, it took around 2-4hrs in the fridge – a little frustrating when all you want to do is try it!
10. When it has finally cooled, cut into pieces – our recipe made roughly 18 squares! Enjoy!

Although there are multiple things to think about, this is a very sequential recipe and really easy to do. Also, it made a great shortbread, that would probably be pretty tasty on its own!

Harriet

Costs: from Tesco, to buy all the ingredients costs roughly £9.84.

This seems expensive, but ingredients such as sugar and flour will last for longer than just the one recipe, making them cheap to buy in the long term. It’s also a good reminder of why it’s nice to club together when baking to split costs. Also, these ingredients are much cheaper in Aldi!