Millionaire's Shortbread

Hey there! Happy Tuesday!

What's that? You've got a craving for chocolate, caramel AND cookies? 

You can't choose? Why would you, when there is such a wonderful thing as millionaire's shortbread?

A famous writer once wrote: 

"Everything in moderation, including moderation"- Oscar Wilde. 

And that is exactly what you should keep in mind when making and eating these delicious treats. You will have bowls that are covered with sticky caramel and melted chocolate that are impossible to get out, so you will feel the strong urge to clean everything with your finger and your tongue. I wouldn't discourage that, but do it in moderation, because you will be to nauseous to even try the shortbread when it's done! 

I made this last thursday with the 'Boyfriend', and he had a jar full of good quality salted caramel from a foody type of birchbox. We just baked the shortbread, spread the caramel on top when it was cooled down and added the chocolate. The recipe does not call for this but I did have some gluten-free flour lying around and we thought it would make the shortbread more crisp and flaky while at the same time we would limit the amount of gluten in the cookie, which for some people is a good thing! 

The result looks like this, and the ingredient list and recipe you can find below! 

Tiny treats, great for sharing (or not)

Millionaire's Shortbread

1 tin of condensed milk

150g of flour

100g of gluten-free flour

75g of white muscavado sugar 

300 g of flour

125g of sugar

200g of pure chocolate

Start with the caramel, I didn't make this myself but this recipe for caramel is fairly widespread so I think we can assume it will lead to the same kind of result! Of course if you can find a good quality caramel in your shop, you can totally go for that instead.

If you're making the caramel, put the tin of condensed milk covered in a pan with boiling water with a lid on top and boil it on low heat for three hours. Check every now and then whether the water level is still high enough, the tin should be totally covered! After three hours take it out of the pan and let it cool down for 30 minutes. Then melt 125g of the butter in a pan and add the sugar and let everything melt together. Add the caramelized condensed milk and let it warm up for 5 minutes. You can also add some sea salt to make it a salted caramel, the jar I used did have salt and the result was awesome!

Heat up the oven to 180 degrees C. Crumb the two types of flour and the rest of the butter (175g) together and add the white muscavado sugar. Kneed the crumbs together to a dough and press it down in your square baking pan lined with baking paper. With a fork make some little holes in the dough and bake it for 30 minutes in the middle of the oven until it's nice and brown and done. Let the shortbread cool down completely. 

On top of the cooled down shortbread spread your caramel and let it set for a little while. I put it in the freezer so it would set a bit faster and if you do that it only takes 10 minutes to set. While it's in the freezer, melt your chocolate au-bain-marie, and then spread the chocolate on top of the caramel. We also added some sea-salt flakes on top of the chocolate to give it an extra kick! Put it back in the freezer for 10 minutes and then you can take it out. 

Take the Millionaire's Shortbread out of the baking tin and cut it into small pieces. Again, everything in moderation, including moderation. That goes best if you cut it into small pieces, so you don't end up eating half the thing in half an hour and getting completely sick with all of that chocolate and caramel. 

So... good luck with that. I can't stop eating those things, it was a good thing I wasn't at home this weekend otherwise I would have eaten even more... But then again, I had more than enough treats this weekend, I was at my parents place I had so much good food once again! At least now I have some more little treats to get myself through the week haha! 

I'd love to hear your comments, whether you've tried to make them or any other recipe's for me to try! So do let me know how you get on! You can contact me through facebook, twitter, instagram or in the old fashioned way, through the comments below this post! 

Lots of love,

Floor

A weekends treat: Chocolate-caramel fudgy brownies

Happy Sunday everyone!

Hows your weekend? Did you have any fun activities planned, or did you just lounge around the house and enjoy some quiet time? My weekend has had a bit of both: on Saturday is spent the whole day in Groningen, which is the largest most northern city in the Netherlands. I went there on an excursion organized by ESN, and if you've been reading my blog for a while you know that I am on its culture committee and that we organize these excursions a couple of times a year. Groningen is beautiful but the weather was a bit of a disappointment, at least the first half of the day. The second half ended up being quite sunny but by 4 pm I was on the train to Nijmegen for a dinner party at one of my best friends house. All in all a very fun day that was concluded quite late when I was back at home in my cozy bed.

This morning I didn't have to rush so I enjoyed that cozy bed a bit longer than necessary, wasting my time, watching YouTube video's as always haha. In the afternoon I had to go into town and the weather was surprisingly beautiful, it almost seems like spring is in the air... but that can't be, right? I had the sun in my face when I walked into the inner city of Utrecht and treated myself to a cup of coffee. On my way back I did some grocery shopping and by accident I ended up with all the ingredients for brownies... Oops! :D Now let's hope there'll be enough people to help me with eating it...

The recipe is one of my all time favorites, I found it in the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and I've been using it for literally YEARS. You end up with deliciously fudgy brownies and they're horrible when you were planning to loose some weight. The recipe is also very basic, so it allows you to add some other ingredients to make it a bit more special. This time I chose to add caramel and sea-salt flakes, but you could also add chocolate chips, chopped nuts, dried fruit, mini marshmellows... basically anything! I think everyone should have a brownie recipe on hand, so that is why I'm giving you my special one, I hope you enjoy it!

Chocolate-caramel fudgy brownies

Ingredients: 

125 g of butter

100 g of chocolate

2/3 cup of sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp of vanilla

2/3 cup of flour

1/4 tsp of baking soda

a pinch of salt

and I added

1 tbsp of Cocoa

a handful of caramel fudge

a sprinkle of sea-salt flakes

Start with pre-heating your oven on 180 C. Grab all of your ingredients, one large bowl that is heat-resistant, a pot with boiling water, a wooden spoon, a chopping board, a knife and a cake tin. 

Put the glass bowl over the pot of boiling water, break the chocolate in small pieces and add it to the bowl together with the butter. Make sure everything is almost completely melted and then take it off of the heat.Add in the sugar and it cool down for a bit. After that add in the eggs one at a time

Mix all of the dry ingredients together (the flour, the baking soda, the salt, and the cocoa) and add it to your liquid mixture. 

When you've reached this stage you've finished the basic recipe. After this step I chopped up some of the caramel fudge and I added it to the mixture. 

Put everything in your greased and floured cake tin and sprinkle it with some sea-salt flakes. Then put it in the oven for at least half an hour if you're using a real brownie tin. I used a cake tin, which gave me some thicker brownies, but I had to cook it for about 15 minutes more. 

And then comes the most difficult process: waiting. I'm always way too excited to get my brownies out of my tin, so I try to wait at least 15 minutes before turning the cake tin over, but really you should give it a bit more time... My brownie crashed and the bottom looks horrible haha, still it tastes really nice and especially the sea-salt gives it another dimension.

So guys, I hope you enjoyed this recipe, give it a try and let me know what you think, or tell me in the comments below what your favorite brownie recipe is! Enjoy the last bit of your weekend and have a great start of the week tomorrow!

Lots of love,

Floor