Millionaires Shortbread

Ingredients:
Shortbread:
175g / 6 oz butter
50g / 1.8 oz icing sugar

30g/ 1 oz light brown granulated sugar

175g / 6 oz OO flour
75g / 2.6 oz corn-flour

Caramel:
1 x tin of 397g condensed milk
2 tbsp golden syrup

Chocolate topping:
160g / 6 oz good chocolate
I used a mix of green and blacks different flavour including: butterscotch, milk, dark and almond, but choose any you prefer.
2 tbsp single cream
 
You can get really good caramel simply by heating the condensed milk on a really low heat with just a couple of spoons of golden syrup in. Either that or follow Heston Blumenthal's trick of simmering the unopened tin for 4 hours in a pan of water. The chocolate topping is best kept simple. Use good quality chocolate with perhaps just a little drizzle of cream. The good old faithful and simple shortbread method below carries these two heavier layers surprisingly well to say how delicate it is. This is the holy grail of shortbreads.

Grease a 20/30cm or 12/8 inch swiss roll tin and line with grease proof paper. Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees.

Cream the butter and two sugars together in a large mixing bowl.

Sift the corn flour and OO flour into the butter-cream. Lightly crumble together into breadcrumb-like textures by rubbing through your thumb and fore-finger and lifting up high out of the bowl as you rub in order to aerate the pastry.

Turn into the prepared swiss-roll tin. Spread evenly over the base. Even the shortbread texture with the back of a big spoon until you have an even surface. 

Cook in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes. Remove and chill.

Once chilled get a small pan on the heat and empty in the condensed milk. Heat through over a very low heat. Stirring from time to time for 40 minutes. You need to get the heat as low as possibly and make sure you stir with a silicone/wooden spoon. If you are boiling the milk cover the tin with water in a deep pan and bring the water to the boil, once boiling reduce to a simmer and leave on a low heat, un-opened, for 4 hours. This option you get away from having to stir but it does take a while longer.

Once you have a caramel colour and texture stir the golden syrup through.
 
Pour the caramel over your chilled shortbread. It will be quite thick so get it as even as you can by using a palate or butter knife to cover the whole base. Do this carefully so it doesn't pick up any of the shortbread underneath. If you're having difficulty ait until this section is chilled to spread out completely and evenly.

Chill the shortbread and caramel in the fridge for over an hour until the caramel toughens. Once chilled, get a pan of shallow boiling water, once boiling turn the heat off and place the chocolate, cut in chunks, in a heat-proof bowl, sat over but not in the water.

Stir to melt for a couple of minutes then add the cream. Stir together. Leave again for a couple of minutes more so it has all melted through.
 
Pour over the cooled caramel. Return to the fridge for a final chilling.

After an hour or two you will be left with a solid block of millionaires shortbread. Lift out by the ends of the grease proof paper and gently remove . Lay the slab out for cutting into. whatever biscuit shapes you decide. This is quite rich so the smaller the portions the better.