Caramel & white chocolate shortbread

This is the stuff of dreams. Sometimes, just sometimes, the 6 year old only child in me creeps back to the surface and whispers in my ear, not to cut the shortbread but to leave it in one block and eat it all myself, whilst pretending to be a giant. Make this for people you care deeply about. Or just yourself if it’s a selfish kind of a day.

Ingredients:

– 250g soft salted butter

– 100g caster sugar

– 260g plain flour

– 90g cornflour

– 1 x 397g tin of caramel

– 200g white chocolate

– Malteasers, chocolate coins… do your worst

Very easy to make. Very easy to eat. Preheat your oven to 170C and line a 20cm x 20cm tin with sides at least 3cm high, with butter and greaseproof paper. (You can use a bigger tin but reduce the cooking time a little as the shortbread will be thinner and therefore will take a shorter time to cook.)

Take your soft butter and beat (in your stand mixer/with an electric mixer/by hand with a wooden spoon) until soft and creamy looking. Then add the sugar and beat again until all combined, light and fluffy. Add the flour and cornflour and beat until the mixtures comes together into clumps. Press into your prepared tin and bake for 20 – 25 minutes until lightly golden brown on the top. Don’t worry about opening the oven to check, shortbread doesn’t mind this at all.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack, in the tin. Once cool open your tin of caramel and pour over the top, using a spoon and knife to ease over the whole of the slab of shortbread. Leave to settle in the fridge. Melt your white chocolate very carefully in the microwave in 30 second bursts so as not to risk burning it. You can use the bain marie method instead if you prefer.

The best way to do this is not to pour in one place – pour it in sections so that you don’t disturb the set caramel. Use a teaspoon to push the chocolate gently over the caramel and then, whilst the chocolate is still molten, pop chocolate coins and Malteasers over the top, being careful to only pop them into ‘squared’ sections so that you can easily cut the slab of shortbread when completely cool and not have to saw a Malteaser or coin in half. Do clean the knife after each cut as it makes for cleaner looking slices.

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