Caramel Shortbread

Lucy and I have always been a fan of baking. And so when we get together it's one of the things we do.

Recently I have become very keen on making caramel shortbread. It is the boyfriend's all time favourite thing, and if you do manage to make it people seem very impressed.

However, my various attempts have not proved particularly successful, so much that recently the boyfriend, on trying another batch, suggested that we just buy it.

The shortbread and the caramel seem to be the two areas of downfall (the chocolate I can cope with).
The shortbread seems to cakey, or stodgy, or rises (that was possibly down to the human error of adding self-raising flour rather than plain).

And the caramel.... Well, i've already destroyed two saucepans (literally NOTHING removes burnt sugar) and the caramel is constantly full of little black flecks (burnt bits) and is lumpy (again, I've attributed this to the burnt bits) and not a good colour (aside from the burnt bits).

So Lucy and I decided to brave it a final time.

Now the reciepe really is extremely simple. There are few ingredients, and very little to actually do to them.

Firstly we actually weighed the flour, sugar and butter for the shortbread.

We mixed it all together and then pressed it into one of the crazy rubber bendy baking tins Lucy had (they are actually really good - non-stick and easy to remove the finished article) and baked until hard and golden brown.



We then melted the condensed milk, more sugar, and more butter for the caramel into a non-stick saucepan, that actually survived the ordeal, and is still looking shiny and new.




And stirred.


And stirred some more. We had to keep stirring until it was no longer all liquidy, but thick.





And then the shortbread was done so we took it out and spread the lovely thick, caramel coloured caramel on top.




And popped it into the freezer while we went and watched Love Actually (a definite part in the countdown to Christmas). When it was all set and hard, we melted the chocolate and spread it all over


Back in the freezer until set, and then cut into sizeable chunks.

And this time it actually, looked, tasted, smelt and had the texture of real millionaire's shortbread. Although the final test is giving a sample to the boyfriend. And sadly it was so good that none of it made it out of St Andrews.