- Cuts into 16 squares - Ready in 3 hours (including 2 hours of cooling time) -
If you want to make this neatly, invest in / borrow a 20cm / 8inch square LOOSE-BASED baking tin. I managed to make it successfully (but not neatly) the first time using an overly large (9.5 inch square) tin by sitting a loaf tin inside the overly-large tin as a barricade. The not-ideal-but-usable tin also had a fixed base, so the finished traybake required a knife to be used to prise it out (even though I'd lined it with greaseproof).
Everyone has their own Millionaire Shortbread preferences, in our house we like: thick shortbread, solid caramel-like-fudge (hence the boiling it for 5+ minutes) and a thin layer of chocolate with a beautiful (but easy to achieve) pattern on. So you can adapt the recipe quantities to suit your requirements.
This recipe isn't suitable for children to make, as the bubbling caramel is a real burn-injury risk.
Gather together for the shortbread…
250g plain flour.
75g white sugar (caster or granulated).
175g cold butter, in 1cm x 1cm x 1cm cubes.
Gather together for the caramel…
100g butter (it will be melted shortly, so it doesn't matter how soft it is).
100g white sugar (caster or granulated).
397g tin of condensed milk.
Gather together for the chocolate topping…
150g plain / milk cooking chocolate.
6 squares of white cooking chocolate.
Get cooking…
1. Preheat the oven to 180 C (160 C fan) or Gas 4.
2. Prepare a loose-based, 20cm / 8inch square loose-based baking tin (it really does need to be a loose-based tin!) by butter-greasing the sides and lining and greasing the base
3. Use a food processor to make the shortbread dough - put the 250g plain flour and the 75g of white sugar into the food processor and blitz to mix for 10 seconds.
4. Add the 175g of cubed, cold butter and blitz just until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs, this will take about 30 seconds - don't over mix or the shortbread will be tough.
5. Tip the crumbly mixture into the base of the (greased and lined) 8-inch-square loose-bottomed tin and press it down (using your fingers at first) so it sits as an even layer. Make sure it reaches right into the corners. Flatten it down gently with a fish slice (or a spare loaf tin), so the surface is nice and even and flat.
6. Prick the shortbread lightly with a fork (make the fork marks fairly close, roughly a centimetre apart) all over its surface, don't pierce all the way through, just the very surface needs holes to stop it puffing up.
7. Bake the fork-pricked shortbread in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes - don't let it get any darker than very slightly golden.
8. If it has puffed up at all, flatten back down with a fish slice. Then leave the shortbread to cool in the tin (on a wire rack) for at least 30 minutes, in a cool room.
9. Once the baked shortbread has been cooling for 20 minutes, you can start making the caramel (as the hot caramel needs to be freshly applied to cool shortbread, for a neat finish).
10. In a small/medium pan on the hob, place first the 100g of butter and then the 100g of sugar (so the butter melts first and the sugar soaks in). This will take up to 5 minutes on the lowest heat setting. Once melted, remove the pan from the heat and STIR WELL for 1 minute to fully combine.
11. Keeping the pan off the heat at first, add the tin of condensed milk to the pan, stir, return the pan to the hob and turn the heat up to medium. Stir every 30 seconds or so until the mixture is boiling vigorously (this stage will be reached in a couple of minutes).
12. Keep the pan at a bubbling boil for 5 minutes, stirring continuously (although stir slowly until it browns to a gentle golden colour, and after that stir vigorously but carefully). The mixture will look weird, glue-like, possibly-separated and bubbly, which is fine. It is very hot and volatile, so keep stirring and keep an eye on the caramel (be ready to swipe the pan off the heat if it threatens to boil over) and keep your fingers well away.
13. Remove from the heat and let the mixture stand for 1 minute.
14. Then pour the boiling hot caramel over the cool shortbread in its tin. Spread the caramel out fairly evenly with the back of a spoon (but don't worry if it looks uneven as the chocolate layer will hide that shortly). The caramel may be so thick that it falls out of the pan in one lump and resists being spread, but spread it out nevertheless and it will be fine. Set the tin aside to cool the caramel layer for at least 30 minutes in a cool place.
15. Once the caramel layer has been cooling for 20 minutes, start preparing the chocolate layer.
16. In a ceramic, heat-proof dish, slowly melt 150g of plain / milk cooking chocolate over a pan of hot water (a 'bain marie'), this will take about 5 minutes on the lowest hob heat. Stir only a couple of times.
17. Pour the 150g of melted chocolate over the cool caramel layer and tilt the tin slightly to spread it out evenly and smoothly.
18. In a clean bowl, melt 6 squares of white cooking chocolate and use it to create a 'feather' pattern by drizzling straight lines of white chocolate (about 2cm apart) over the brown chocolate layer. Use a small, plastic bag with a tiny corner snipped off or invest in a reusable funnel-shaped spoon, to drizzle with. Then use a pointy implement (such as a skewer) to drag through the white chocolate lines, moving at right angles to the first lines you drew. Start at alternating sides for each line you start to draw - I made mine with a more freestyle design you'll notice in the photograph, but the final look was still beautiful. Google 'feathering chocolate video' if you haven't watched enough episodes of Bake Off to know what I'm describing!
19. Set the traybake aside for at least an hour in a cool room / the fridge, so the chocolate firmly sets.
20. Remove the traybake from the cake-tin by placing it on a large low tin-can and pressing down on the outer part of the cake-tin, until it drops down (you'll be glad of the loose bottom at this stage!), remove the cake-tin base and sit the traybake (and lining paper) on a chopping board.
21. Use a very sharp knife to cut the Millionaire Shortbread into 16 squares (or into 32 snack size pieces).
22. You can freeze this 'firm' version of homemade Millionaire Shortbread for up to a month. It keeps its delicious texture/flavour even when defrosted (as the caramel is so fudge-like). I freeze it in 32 small rectangular bits and a single piece defrosts in about 30 seconds in a medium-low heat microwave - yum!
Adapted from the BBC Good Food 'Easy Millionaire's Shortbread' recipe.