The way to Make Millionaire’s Shortbread, the Straightforward British Dessert That Tastes Extremely Luxe

My colleagues know I’ve an enormous candy tooth: I eat a whole lot of chocolate mousse, I make a imply icebox cake, and I can accurately establish Haagen-Dazs strawberry ice cream with my eyes closed. What they don’t know is that my love—or, maybe extra precisely, want—for sweets is so nice that I flip right into a Gremlin after 3 p.m. if I haven’t had my every day sugar repair. Once I lived in Scotland, that was typically a slice of cake or millionaire’s shortbread, a preferred British confection of shortbread layered with caramel and chocolate. 

I now not reside in Britain, however I do nonetheless yearn for my afternoon slice of millionaire’s shortbread. Sadly, the deal with is slightly tougher to come back by within the U.S., and those I’ve eaten right here are sometimes disappointing and overly candy, with stale, brittle biscuits and a chalky caramel that tastes prefer it’s heavy on the corn syrup. I took it upon myself to create the very best model: one with a young, crumbly shortbread base and a deeply flavored, just-salty-enough butterscotch filling, together with a topping of darkish chocolate that is bittersweet sufficient to forestall the dessert from being unbearably cloying.

In different phrases, the most effective millionaire’s shortbread is luxe however tasteful, not gauche and gaudy—as a result of the query is not simply who needs to be a millionaire, however what sort of millionaire do you wish to be? The recipe right here is my reply.

A Temporary Historical past of Millionaire’s Shortbread

Many, together with Felicity Cloake, a food author for The Guardian, credit score Australian Ladies’s Weekly with printing the primary recipe for millionaire’s shortbread someday within the Nineteen Seventies, although not beneath that identify. A fast peek at previous cookbooks and newspapers, nonetheless, suggests the recipe is older than that. A recipe for shortbread caramel fingers in a 1965 version of The Surrey Mirror and County Put up instructs cooks to pour caramel—constructed from butter, caster sugar, syrup, and a small tin of condensed milk—over shortbread, letting it set, then topping it with half a bar of melted milk chocolate earlier than slicing into fingers or squares. “Scrumptious and strange,” the unnamed author notes.

As we speak, the dessert goes by a number of names; I’ve seen it known as a caramel sq., caramel slice, or caramel shortbread. In Scotland, it’s generally known as millionaire’s shortbread, although it’s unclear precisely why or when the identify turned hooked up to it. Fortunately, you don’t need to be a millionaire to make or get pleasure from it— you may, nonetheless, really feel such as you’ve gained the lottery after tasting it.

5 Suggestions for Making the Finest Millionaire’s Shortbread

Begin with good shortbread. You’ll be able to’t go fallacious with shortbread, caramel, and chocolate, however for a really excellent bar, every part ought to be ok to get pleasure from by itself. The shortbread base within the recipe beneath is a barely totally different model of 1 I’ve revealed earlier than. The unique shortbread recipe comes from Gaga, my husband’s grandma; right here, I’ve barely tweaked it so the cookies are made with all-purpose flour (as an alternative of a mix of all-purpose and entire wheat flour), which extra carefully mimics the flavour and texture of the bottom utilized in conventional millionaire’s shortbread. 

In contrast to many conventional shortbread recipes, which have you ever cream softened butter and sugar collectively, Gaga’s easy one-bowl technique has you pour melted butter over the flour, cornstarch, sugar, and salt. Although I’ve modified her recipe barely right here, the tactic—and why it really works—continues to be the identical. The melted butter evenly coats the dry elements, which minimizes gluten improvement and produces a wealthy, tender shortbread. There’s additionally a big quantity of rice flour or cornstarch, which dilutes the gluten proteins within the all-purpose flour and reduces the general gluten within the dough. (You’ll be able to learn extra about it right here.)

Cook dinner the butterscotch to the suitable temperature. Cook dinner caramel for too lengthy, and you find yourself with a troublesome, brittle sweet. Cook dinner it too quick, and you’ve got a runny sauce. To make sure you have the suitable texture—tender however satisfyingly chewy—it’s important to prepare dinner the butterscotch to the suitable stage, and essentially the most correct method to do this is to take the temperature. 

In my recipe beneath, I’ve you are taking the butterscotch to 235ºF (113ºC). That is the decrease finish of what pastry cooks consult with because the soft-ball stage, which ranges from 235 to 239ºF (113 to 115ºC), certainly one of a number of levels used to explain the water content material of sugar syrups. “The upper the temperature the syrup has reached, the much less water stays within the sugar, and the firmer the ensuing samples of sugar might be,” writes pastry chef Peter Grewling within the Culinary Institute of America textbook Chocolate and Confections. 

On the soft-ball stage, a drop of the syrup right into a glass of cool water varieties a malleable or tender ball. Praline or caramel candies taken to the soft-ball stage are sometimes agency however pliable, and have a pleasing chewiness. In my testing, I discovered 235ºF (113ºC) to be the candy spot. You’ll be able to experiment with temperatures to discover a texture that fits you finest, however I don’t advocate exceeding 239ºF (115ºC), because the butterscotch could change into too onerous to enjoyably eat.

Skip the condensed milk. Many recipes for millionaire’s shortbread name for cooking condensed milk with butter, sugar, and infrequently corn syrup or golden syrup to type the caramel. In my testing, I discovered that condensed milk caramels weren’t simpler, quicker, or extra scrumptious than a caramel or butterscotch filling constructed from scratch. (A notice on terminology: Caramel is technically constructed from granulated sugar, whereas butterscotch is made with brown sugar. Recipes for millionaire’s shortbread are inclined to consult with the center layer as a “caramel,” but when the filling is made with brown sugar—which is often the case, if a recipe doesn’t name for condensed milk—then it’s butterscotch.)

To make the bar’s filling, I name on a number of pantry and fridge staples—unsalted butter, darkish brown sugar, heavy cream, and salt—which I simmer on the range till it reaches the soft-ball stage. The darkish brown sugar brings a deep molasses and toffee notice, leading to a extra flavorful butterscotch filling, whereas the cream and butter add richness.

Chill the bars in levels. After you pour the butterscotch filling over the shortbread, it’s important to sit back the bars earlier than including the chocolate layer. I let it cool first at room temperature, then switch it to the fridge to additional set. A fast cease within the freezer whereas I whip up the chocolate topping is simply sufficient to get it agency sufficient to slice neatly whereas additionally serving to the chocolate set slightly quicker as soon as poured on prime.

Prime it with darkish chocolate. The largest threat with a dessert like that is that it may come out cloyingly candy—that’s, in any case, what can occur if you take a cookie and prime it with caramel and chocolate. However that does not imply a extra balanced outcome is not attainable, it simply requires consideration to the main points. One of many best methods to make sure the millionaire’s shortbread is not unbearably candy is by selecting the chocolate properly. 

I like to recommend topping the bars with darkish chocolate that is round 64 to 72% cacao, as its bittersweet taste helps offset the extreme sweetness of the butterscotch and shortbread. Although you’re greater than welcome to make use of milk or white chocolate, the bars might be a lot, a lot sweeter, and there’s nothing to maintain you from spiraling into completely saccharine territory.

Don’t overlook the salt. There’s hardly a dessert on the market that does not profit from the addition of salt, however it’s particularly essential right here. As soon as once more, it’s all about balancing out the inherent sweetness of the elements, and a even handed use of salt in every layer goes a good distance in the direction of that. From the shortbread to the butterscotch and the chocolate topping, a noticeable pop of salt  counters the sugar and retains one foot in fantastically salty-sweet, ever so barely savory territory.