Salted caramel shortbread

I bet I'm not the only husband who reads his wife's magazines when he's bored, especially on holiday.  I found this recipe in a copy of Reveal sitting by the pool in Tenerife so I had to tear it out and bring it home as we always leave our magazines for other people to read.  Salted caramel is still very much in vogue and this is a salty variation on Millionaire's Shortbread.  use coarse sea salt for the best effect, this recipe made twelve pieces but as you can imagine it is very sweet so cut it down to twenty four if you want to share it.

SALTED CARAMEL SHORTBREAD

 

For the shortbread

• 175g butter
• 225 plain flour
• 75g caster sugar
• 1 tsp coarse sea salt

For the caramel

• 225 butter
• 397g tin of condensed milk
• 4 tbsp. golden syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla paste or essence
• 1 tsp coarse sea salt

For the topping

• 300g milk chocolate
• 100g white chocolate

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F/gas 4
Grease and line a 20cm square brownie tin or similar
Now you can rub together the butter, flour and sugar in a bowl to make a rough dough or you can whizz it together in a food processor in about 3 minutes until it is just clumping together
Press the dough into the tin and smooth it out with the back of a spoon then prick it all over with a fork
Bake for 5 minutes then reduce the heat to 150C/300F/gas 2 and bake for a further 35 minutes.  This was the right timing for me so its probably safe to leave it this long.  I did check it after 30 and put it back in for the final five minutes
Once cooked allow to cool in the tin and sprinkle with the sea salt.

Place all the caramel ingredients into a saucepan and bring to the boil.  It might be worth putting the butter in first to melt and help prevent the sugars from burning.  Simmer for ten minutes till it thickens.  I found that some of the mix did burn on the bottom of the pan.  My wife blames the Le Creuset pan and I had to sieve it.  Pour over the shortbread base and leave to set in the fridge.  Here's a pretty picture of the golden syrup before it sank through the condensed milk.

When the caramel is set enough melt the chocolates separately.  Pour the milk chocolate over the caramel then drizzle the white chocolate over that.  If you're feeling artistic feather the lines of white chocolate with a skewer then place back in the fridge to set.

Finally cut it up into as many pieces as you want.  Try not to leave it too long before you do this as the chocolate could get brittle in the fridge and then you'll never get a clean cut.