Millionaire’s Shortbread with a thick buttery cookie, spiced caramel filling and a thin layer of chocolate round out my latest baking bucket list adventure.
I’ve been slacking on my 2019 Baking Bucket List but with 6-weeks left in the year, I’ve committed to knocking out one challenge each week. To get me back in the groove, I started with Millionaire’s Shortbread.
The first time I had Millionaire’s Shortbread was on a food tour in London. It was the final bite of our tour at Pizza East and I fell in love with the simplicity of the cookie. Millionaire’s Shortbread has a crumbly butter cookie crust that’s topped with a light caramel filling. The caramel is a smooth, silky consistency, not at all the kind that’s tacky and sticks to your teeth. It has a light nutty sweet flavor and it melts in your mouth. On top is a thin layer of dark chocolate and a touch of flakey sea salt. Just a divine, refined flavor combination and perfect as a small sweet bite after a hefty meal.
Since I chose to bake my Millionaire’s Shortbread in the fall (and because I’m basic AF) I put a little twist on my caramel filling by adding a dash of pumpkin spice to the caramel.
Now, I know what you’re thinking ‘Why did I have to go and mess up a good thing?’ But really, this little hint of spice is so subtle that you hardly even notice it. The spice is more like an afterthought, a ghost of cinnamon and spice that this basic blonde enjoyed. So, if you choose to use make these bars, go right ahead and leave it out if you’re not a PS fan.
While baking Millionaire’s Shortbread wasn’t really challenging, it did teach me a few lessons.
- The best shortbread cookie should have a crumbly, sandy dough. When I first looked at my shortbread dough, I was a bit hesitant it would stay together but after picking it up and clumping it together in my hand it stayed in form. While it was awfully deceptive in my mixing bowl, the sandy dough resulted in a buttery, crumbly shortbread.
- Making caramel is a real arm workout! I had to whisk the sweetened condensed milk mixture vigorously for 20-minutes. I really thought the recipe was kidding when it said to stand at the stove and stir for 20-minutes. Typically, I can multi-task during this step but NOT with caramel. Walking away for even 30-seconds could result in a burned caramel.
- Cleanly cutting chocolate so it doesn’t crack can be frustrating. The key here is to ensure the chocolate is set but not too set. If the chocolate is chilled too much when you cut into it, the chocolate will crack and you’re pretty much doomed. I found letting the bars chill for 2.5 hours in the fridge after frosting with the chocolate was the right amount of time prior to cutting.
- Cutting bars into a precise, symmetrical shape with clean lines requires some serious math and patience. To ensure clean, straight lines I used a ruler to mark each of my cuts on all sides of the pan prior to cutting then used the ruler to guide my lines. The ‘hot knife trick‘ was also required to flawlessly slide through the chocolate and caramel.
While my Millionaire’s Shortbread cookies weren’t a huge dive back into my baking bucket list, they were enough of a warm-up that I feel motivated to knock out the remaining items on my list. Up next, is a jellyroll (or some kind of rolled cake!).
Looking for a recipe? I followed the New York Times Millionaire’s Shortbread recipe exactly, only adding 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice to the caramel at the same time as when I added the vanilla extract and chose to top my shortbread with a pinch of flakey sea salt prior to serving.