And finally on to some baking for a Macmillan bake sale! I have to admit I was a little nervous about making something good after a few shoddy bakes in recent history. This is a recipe I've been meaning to try out for a few years actually. I'll leave the link here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/millionaires_shortbread_76712
Biscuits have never been my strong suit but I had a helpful advisor to tell me when it looked done. I mixed butter with flour to make a breadcrumb like consistency. I added a little more flour when it started to ball up in the mixer, just to keep it loose and friable. Caster sugar was rubbed in next. The shortbread mixture was then pressed down into the lined baking tray, making sure there were no gaps around the edges. This was then baked for around 30 minutes.
Once this was done and cooled slightly, I mixed butter, golden syrup and condensed milk until it was all melted and slightly reduced. The heat was increased slightly to a simmer until the mixture began to change colour to something that resembled caramel. Some did begin to burn on the bottom of the pan so I continued stirring the pan for 5-10 minutes...
....Until it looked more like this!
The recipe says to let the caramel cool slightly before pouring onto the shortbread, but there was a serious danger that I would eat it all with a teaspoon before this was ready... I have to say, this was my first time making caramel and it tasted pretty darn good!
To be fair, the deconstructed dessert below would be totally acceptable to serve in this state somewhere in east London..!
The caramel was poured on and I left it covered over night to set.
In the morning, chocolate was melted the traditional way over a pan of boiling water.
This was poured over the top of the caramel and smoothed out into the corners in an even layer. I left this in the fridge to set for another 24 hours.
After some careful slicing around the edge, I was able to remove the shortbread from the tray in one big slab with such beautiful layers!!
How I'm to cut this without cracking the chocolate and squeezing the caramel out is anybody's guess. Spoon anyone?
No comments:
Post a Comment