Not BBQ: Millionaire's Shortbread

[lunchman]

Sorry, not BBQ. No prep pics either. I hadn't thought of posting this when I made these on Sunday, but they turned out so darn good I had to share them.

John Kanell (PreppyKitchen.com) had posted a YouTube video recently. I had all the ingredients on hand with the exception of Sweetened Condensed Milk. So what the heck, I picked that up on a grocery run and got to work.

I'll mention that during the holidays I normally make hundreds of salted caramels as gifts. Caramels, chocolate caramels, chocolate covered caramels, peanut brittle, toffee. But I've been a bit lax the past two Christmases and haven't made any. These seemed to fit the bill.

Three layers:

Shortbread
Caramel
Chocolate

I won't bore you with the details as the recipe's on the Preppy Kitchen site. It's on a bunch of other sites as well including America's Test Kitchen. The Sweetened Condensed Milk makes the caramel step a lot easier. My normal caramels take about 40 minutes of constant stirring.

The finished product. I initially cut them into 12 squares from the 9x9 pan, but one huge square is too much to eat. So they turned into 24 rectangles -

My wife and I are trying not to eat too many of these and I still have a container full of them in the fridge. They're quite similar to Twix, except you don't have to choose between left and right. :-D

If you're into making candy (or even if you're not), give these a try. They're not that difficult to make despite the three step process and the results are worth the effort.

OK, back to BBQ. :becky:

Regards,
-lunchman

 

[tom b]

Sweet!

 

[kevinstaggs]

Bet my grandkids would love em. I’ll look the recipe up and make it for them. They love Twix so it’ll be a hit.

 

[cowgirl]

 

[LYU370]

I suck at baking, but I'll probably try to make these.

 

[PGarSD]

Looks awesome, thanks! Bookmarked and will give them a try after I lose a few lbs

 

[Stingerhook]

That's sweetness at it's best Dom.

 

[Big George's BBQ]

I dont think I would have had the same restraint you and your wife had Dom

 

[BBQ Bacon]

I've always wanted to make these and yours look fantastic. Is that chunky salt on top or sugar?

 

[Mikhail]

That combines so many of my favorite tastes.. looking up the recipe!

 

[ModelMaker]

Don't do many sweets, but they look very tasty.
Ed

 

[lunchman]

I've always wanted to make these and yours look fantastic. Is that chunky salt on top or sugar?

Sea salt.

Funny, I found a recipe for billionaire's shortbread, which uses salted caramel as opposed to caramel. One upmanship, I guess.

A couple of other things I noticed between different recipes. Preppy Kitchen uses room temp butter and heats the caramel to 225. ATK uses melted butter and goes to 239 (soft ball stage). My Chef Alarm was still set at 238 from the last time I made caramel.

I looked at a few other recipes, some used 225, some 239. I guess it depends how chewy you want your caramel to be. 225 worked fine for me.

 

[Moose]

Dom, that looks fantastic! Since The Missus handles all the baking, I'll get her on it.

In the meantime, don't eat any more of the ones you have - I'll be over to take them off your hands!


:mrgreen:

 

[creek bottom]

Dang it, Dom! I have to have surgery in a few weeks and the doctor told me I REALLY need to lose some weight. I've been eating a lot healthier and trying to avoid sweets. Those look and sound incredible and I'll definitely be storing this for when I can indulge again... Thanks for the post!

 

[CivilTrojan]

Those look and sound amazing!!!

 

[LYU370]

Any recipe calling for three sticks of butter has to be pretty good. :thumb:

 

[Moose]

The Missus whipped up a batch last night. I haven't tried them yet, but will later tonight - stay tuned...

 

[LordRiffenstein]

Dom, that looks fabulous!

 

[Rebel78]

Somebody brought these to work one time, they were really good.

 

[Moose]

Well...I ate more of them than I care to admit. How could I not?

Two things The Missus did differently -one, for the chocolate topping, she just poured a bag of mini semi sweet chips over the caramel, then put it back in the oven to melt. Then it got pulled out so she could make the top nice and pretty with a pastry putty knife. The second change was the addition of Fleur de sel,(instead of sea salt) a delicate finishing salt that has a wonderful texture that's ideal for baking.


Thanks for the inspiration, Dom!


As an aside, it would be interesting to take this to another level by leaving out the chocolate topping and instead, dipping each bar individually in chocolate. Kind of like a "Millionaire's Twix" bar!