Millionaire Shortbread Bars

Coco and Ash

Millionaire Shortbread Bars

These Millionaire Shortbread Bars are one of those recipes that I made a few times when I was in high school and I remember devouring batches of them! I had forgotten all about millionaire shortbread until this week when I was looking through an old stack of printed recipes. (Thank God for Pinterest right?! They are kind of like a fancy Twix bar. They have a buttery cookie layer on the bottom, ooey gooey caramel in the middle, and then salted chocolate on top. They are insanely good! Here's what you need for Millionaire Shortbread Bars: For the shortbread layer: 1 stick of cold butter (plus a little more for greasing the pan 1 cup of flour (plus 1 tbsp for preparing the pan 1/3 cup of sugar For the caramel layer 1 (14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk 2 tbsp butter For the chocolate layer 1 (12 ounce bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips 1/8 tsp coarse sea salt (optional First pre-heat your oven to 350 then you can prepare your pan. In a square 8x8 pan, take your extra butter (about a tablespoon and grease the pan. Make sure you get up the sides. Then add 1 tbsp of flour to the pan and shake it around to coat the entire pan. Dump out the excess. Set that aside for a minute and we can start making the shortbread layer! It's crazy easy : First take your stick of cold butter and cut it into small pieces like this.  Now, I made the shortbread layer in a food processor which makes it take all of 10 seconds to make. If you don't have a food processor, you can add everything to a bowl and use either a pastry cutter (like this one or a sturdy fork. Now either in your bowl or your food processor, add in your flour, sugar, and the cubed butter. If you're using a food processor, pulse it a few times (I think I did maybe 8 or 10 until it has clumps about the size of peas. If you're using a regular bowl, cut in your butter with your pastry cutter or fork until it looks the same. It's a little bit harder work but I've made this plenty of times with just a fork :  Go ahead and dump all of that into your prepared baking dish. Don't worry if you think you have a lot of flour that's not incorporated. As long as you press it all evenly into the pan, that cold butter will melt as it cooks and it will all come together. So go ahead and press all of that shortbread into the pan and flatten it out as best you can. Pop that into the oven for 20 minutes. When it comes out, it should have just a slight golden edge. Make sure you don't over cook it or it will get hard as a rock when it cools. (Not that I've done that or anything! While your shortbread is cooking, you can start making your caramel layer. But here's what your shortbread will look like when it comes out of the oven. Okay so while your shortbread is cooking, get a small pot out and pour in your can of sweetened condensed milk and the 2 tablespoons of butter. Now here's the one part of these millionaire shortbread bars that takes some effort. Cook this on medium heat for about 20 minutes and you have to stir pretty much the whole time. SORRY!! Ok I promise they are worth it and I hate stirring but just pretend that you are working off the calories to eat a batch of these when they're done! : You just don't want anything to burn on the bottom of the pan because it will give these a seriously funky taste. So using a spatula (this kind stir this together while scraping the bottom of the pan. When it's done (and it takes about 20 minutes it'll get a little bit darker and be much thicker than when you first started. Now if your shortbread is still hot, either wait until it cools down a little or if you're impatient like me, just be very careful spreading out your caramel layer. Pour all of it right over the shortbread layer and spread it out evenly. Just take your time and don't press down hard. Now comes the easiest part! The chocolate layer! So take half of your bag of chocolates and, in a microwave safe bowl, heat it for 1 minute in the microwave. Take it out, stir it, then add in the other half of your bag and microwave again for 30 seconds. Stir until it's completely melted. Take your melted chocolate and pour all of it over the top of the caramel layer. Using a dinner knife or a spoon, spread it out as evenly as you can. Sprinkle the top with the course sea salt. Now put it in the fridge and let it completely cool for at least 2 hours. You don't have to store them in the fridge but you want to let the chocolate set so you can cut them. After the 2 hours you can set them out to get to room temp so they are easier to slice. Cut into small squares and enjoy!!  [amd-zlrecipe-recipe:37]   Original recipe from Food Network