The Closest to Success I'll Get, In This Country

If you've read my blog from the beginning, you know that I am in search of an authentic, Scottish recipe of Millionaire Shortbread, exactly the way I had it in Scotland last spring break. I've decided that the only way I'm going to actually be able to do that, is to go back to Scotland. Mike? Please? We can stop there on the way to Normandy :) Anyways, what I'm sharing with you today is not exactly what I've been dreaming of for the past year, but it's preeeeeeetty close! I have a friend that was in Scotland a couple of months after I was, and I asked her to track down this recipe for me. She got me contact information for a bake shop/farm there, and they actually wrote me back with the recipe that they use! Wherever you are Ian, thanks for the recipe!

*The measurements are all by weight, so you're going to need a scale to follow it. Also, don't ever ever ever use just a regular, old pot to make caramel. You need one that has a thick base, with 2 or 3 layers.

Millionaire Shortbread

For the shortbread:

9 oz plain flour

3 oz caster sugar (if you can't find caster, use superfine)

6 oz butter, softened

For the caramel:

4 oz butter or margarine

4 oz light muscovado sugar (if you can find light muscovado, use dark brown)

Two 14 oz cans sweetened condensed milk

For the topping:

7 oz plain or milk chocolate, broken into pieces (I just use baking chips...they're already small...)

Preheat the oven to 350. Lightly grease a 9x13 pan. (They called it a tin!)

To make the shortbread, mix the flour and caster sugar in a bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Knead the mixture together until it forms a dough, then press into the base of the prepared pan. Prick the shortbread lightly with a fork and bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes or until firm to the touch and very lightly browned. Cool in the pan.

To make the caramel, measure the butter, sugar and condensed milk into a pan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to a boil, stirring all the time, then reduce the heat and simmer very gently, stirring continuously, for about 5 minutes or until the mixture has thickened slightly. Pour over the shortbread and leave to cool.

For the topping, melt the chocolate slowly in a bowl over a pan of hot water (aka double boiler or bain marie). Pour over the cold caramel and leave to set. Cut into squares or bars.

*The recipe also says that you could use chocolate frosting (They call it cake covering! Love it!) or make a marbled chocolate on top, just split the amount of chocolate evenly between milk and white chocolate (3.5 oz of each...).

This is my candy making pan :) See the thickness on the bottom? There's a couple of different layers.

This is the shortbread before it's baked. Be sure and mix it together really really well before pressing it into the pan. As you can see from the top corners, I didn't mix my butter in very well there and it looks a little dry.

When making caramel, never ever ever ever ever ever EVER stop stirring!!! If you do, it will catch on the bottom and burn; it needs to always be moving around. I want you to make a note here that if you're making this caramel and you start to see brown spots, don't freak out! The dark brown sugar will do that. You will know the difference between sugar spots and burned caramel spots. Funny story about this particular batch of caramel, so this recipe makes a LOT of caramel and I decided to half that part of it. I halved the butter and the sweetened condensed milk... but not the sugar. My caramel had a very caramelly flavor and color, but once set up it was not gooey at all. So, learn from my mistakes and watch your measurements :)

Here it is! If I had made my caramel correctly, it would be a little more gooey. See how thick that caramel layer is though? If you do the full amount it will be twice that thick! If you like that much, more power to you!!!