Chocolate caramel shortbread

This week the friendly pony decided to take a break from dinosaur flapjacks (usually at least one is consumed per day) and tasked me to make something else.

I decided to make something I don’t particularly like, so I wouldn’t be so tempted to steal some for myself. As much as I would love to be able to eat baked goods all the time, it really wouldn’t be good for my waistline!

I decided on chocolate caramel shortbread, because caramel is a bit too sickly for me, but perfect for the pony’s sweet tooth.

I had a few problems making this, firstly that it called for a 9×9″ tray, which I don’t have. I improvised by creating a foil barrier in a rectangle tray, which actually surprised me and worked!

The shortbread itself is absolute simplicity to make so no problems there, but when it came to the caramel I came a bit unstuck.

I very gently heated all the ingredients with no problem, but the recipe then said to bring it to the boil, which immediately caused it to burn on the bottom of the saucepan, no matter how furiously I stirred. I took it off the heat, passed it through a sieve to get rid of the brown bits, then started again in a different saucepan on a lower heat. Frustratingly the same thing happened again and I have absolutely no idea why, so i repeated the sieve procedure, then heated for a THIRD time until it was finally thick enough.

It didn’t quite reach the golden brown colour I was hoping for, and did have a few brown specks in if you look closely, but it was good enough.

Patience is definitely not one of my virtues, so I put the tray in the freezer to firm up so I could get the chocolate on as quickly as possible. Unfortunately this meant that the chocolate set super quick so I couldn’t spread it as neatly as I would of liked, and it had a slightly matt finish instead of being glossy.

Nonetheless, I think these bars turned out ok – the pony declared them ‘NICE!’ and certainly hasn’t had a problem getting through them…

Chocolate caramel shortbread (from 1001 cupcakes, cookies and other tempting treats):

• 115g butter
• 115g plain flour
• 55g caster sugar

Place all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz until it goes past the breadcrumbs stage and starts to come together. Flatten down into a greased and lined 9×9″ tin and bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes, until just golden.

• 175g butter
• 115g caster sugar
• 3tbsp golden syrup
• 400ml tin condensed milk
• 200g dark chocolate

Place all the ingredients apart from the chocolate in a saucepan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil, then simmer until thick and golden (in an ideal world!) stiring constantly. Pour on top of the shortbread base, and leave in the fridge to set.

Melt the chocolate over simmering water then spread over the caramel. Cut into squares before putting back in the fridge, as the chocolate will be easier to cut and won’t crack.