Salted Chocolate and Caramel Shortbread Bars

I saw a photo of a dessert like this as part of a Bakeoff held by Bon Appetit; the photo was an inspiration but the recipe not so much! First, it was in metric and called for storebought elements to complete, so thought I would take it on to make my own version..the year of salted everything! I admit, I love the combination of caramel, chocolate and salt. I first tried it as a hot chocolate drink served by Starbucks a couple of years ago and became instantly hooked; I expected that same glee here and they do deliver!

I've got a group I meet with monthly that is going to benefit from this effort…hoping tomorrow it will be Ladies who Skip Lunch for this Dessert!

The results were very good, but I would make some revisions from my first attempt which I've detailed below.

Shortbread

Ingredients

• ½ lb softened butter
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 cups plain flour
• 2 Tablespoons ground almonds
• 3.5 oz caramel sauce, purchased or homemade (See Below)
• 2-3 oz milk or dark chocolate
• Seat Salt  – I used Maldon Salt flakes because the flakes are so pretty. I got them locally from Savory Spice Shop in Littleton, CO.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325
2. Grease the inside of a 9X9" baking pan with butter and then ‘flour’ with the ground almonds.
3. Cream butter and sugar in mixer.
4. Slowly add the flour, ½ cup at a time. Results will be somewhat crumbly; that's OK, you'll pat them into a layer in the pan.
5. Put dough into pan and firmly press with fingers to spread it to sides of pan, making an even layer.
6. Prick top all over with fork tines.
7. Bake for 30 – 35 minutes in the center of the oven or until firm to touch and very light brown in color
8. Remove from the oven and cool. Top with caramel (see below). Refrigerate until firm.
9. Melt chocolate gently in double boiler and pour evenly over the caramel, cool slightly and then sprinkle lightly with sea salt.
10. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
11. Cut into 16 single serving sizes or if serving with other desserts, could be cut into 32 smaller servings.

Caramel Sauce

I made my own recipe for caramel sauce but found it problematic when adding melted chocolate to the top and spreading it; a difficult trick putting melted chocolate over melted caramel! I use half and half in my recipe and now think that heavy cream might have made for a better consistency. I may even revise and next time make actual caramel for this layer. It looks and tastes great but I would say there is more chocolate than I would have liked as spreading a warm layer of chocolate on top of another layer of sauce…almost impossible. So, I'm going to advocate that you either:

Purchase caramels or make your own and cut them in small chunks, adding them to the shortbread layer about 5 minutes before it is considered done, letting the caramels melt. Put the pan in the refrigerator until the caramel starts to firm up and then spread with the melted chocolate layer.

Next time I'll make my own caramel or work to make a bit thicker sauce that would firm up more when refrigerated.

Here's my standard recipe for caramel sauce:

1 cup sugar
6 Tbsp Butter
1/2 cup Half and Half

I don't have photos of the steps to make the sauce, so please go to David Lebovitz's site and follow his directions for making the caramel syrup. When the sugar becomes the proper color, add the butter and half and half. (I'll try this with heavy cream next time thinking it would make for a heavier layer that might firm up a bit more).

Whisk until the mixture is smooth and all of the ingredients are thoroughly combined. Pour the mixture into a heatproof container and allow to cool before spreading on the shortbread cookie crust.

Tagged as: bar, caramel, chocolate, cookie, Desserts, salted, shortbread