Particularly Delicious Millionaire’s Shortbread With Ginger

This recipe makes shortbread with a very mild ginger aftertaste.  For a stronger ginger flavour just add a little more ground ginger.

You will need:

Shortbread:

• 150g of caster sugar
• 450g of plain flour
• 300g of butter (diced and at room temperature)
• 1.5 teaspoons of ground ginger

Topping:

• 100g of butter
• 75g of caster sugar
• 40g of golden syrup
• 200g of condensed milk
• 200g of your favourite chocolate (I used Dairy Milk)

Firstly you need to mix the ingredients for your shortbread together.  I find this easiest to do over a low heat as the butter melts and makes it easier to mix.  I mixed mine in the thermomix (50C, speed 4, for about 2 minutes) but you can mix by hand at room temperature or in a saucepan over a low heat.  It should end up looking something like this:

  
Next you need to put the mixture into a traybake pan, I use one that’s 12″ x 8″ and it works well with this recipe.  I grease and line my tray although I’m not sure it’s completely necessary.  The tray I use also has a removable base.  This means that it’s much easier to remove the traybake without it falling apart.  

 
You need to push the mixture in quite firmly, I used a palette knife to make it smooth.  You need to pop this in a preheated oven (about 170C) for approximately 22 minutes or until golden brown.

  
While the shortbread is cooking you need to make the caramel.  I used the thermomix again for this part.  You just need to put all of your ingredients  (the ones listed for the topping, apart from the chocolate!) into the thermomix and set it to varoma temperature, speed two for about half an hour.  If you’re not using a thermomix you can make your caramel in a pan.  You’ll need to put the butter, sugar, golden syrup and condensed milk into a pan, it needs to be on a fairly high heat as you want the mixture to reach 116C.  You also need to keep stirring to stop the caramel from burning.

Once the caramel and shortbread are ready it’s time to combine the two.  Spread the caramel evenly over the shortbread and leave to cool.

  
While the caramel is cooling you can begin to melt the chocolate.  Break the chocolate into pieces and place into a bowl.  Fill a second bowl with boiling water and then place the bowl full of chocolate on top.  I find it’s best to have a cuppa while the chocolate is melting.

Once the chocolate has melted give it a good stir to make sure that there are no lumps and then spread it over the caramel.

Leave the shortbread in the fridge for about 10 minutes then take it out and use a knife to score the chocolate to mark where your cuts will be later. 

I then left this in the fridge overnight to ensure that it had set completely.  Once it is completely set you can remove it from the tray and cut.  You will need a sharp knife and some muscle power.  My husband did the honours cutting this one and he says that keeping an even pressure on the knife helps to reduce crumbling!

 

Another day I decided to make two batches of the shortbread but I only had one baking tin (only realised this after making twice the amount of shortbread needed for one!).  So I used cupcake cases and they worked surprisingly well!  It also meant that there was no tricky cutting involved and no problems with crumbling.  I was making the second batch for a picnic, they were much easier to transport in their individual cases.

  
I made the shortbread into balls then flattened it with the back of a spoon.

  
After baking I added the caramel, I used a couple of cake tins to try to help the bun cases to keep their shape.  
  
Then I added the chocolate and popped them into the fridge to set.

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