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Caramel Shortcake

by Scott Brown 6 photos Rated 79% 203 votes when voting closed

After having a look through my cupboards for inspiration I was torn between McVities Chocolate Brownies, or caramel shortcakes. After thinking about it and the amount of preparation involved I went for the shortcakes.

The ingredients were:
400g milk chocolate – £2
2 cans caramelised condensed milk – £3
500g Digestives – 60p
Price: £5.60

A 450g Dairy Milk bar, two tins of Carnation caramel and McVitie's digestives on the worktop

I was expecting to have to caramelise the milk myself, which I was all prepared to do after looking for caramel recipes, but when I got to the supermarket I found that there were cans where it’d been done already. Result!

Now to making it. It can take forever to break up biscuits (I know this due to another cake I make from time to time), and I’d been toying with the idea of getting a food processor for a while, so prior to this project I popped down to Argos and got myself one, and did it make life easier? Well, yes, but I ignored the line that says MAX and managed to get a large amount of biscuit crumbs all over my floor and kitchen worktops. Ah well. Anyway, once you’ve got the biscuits down to fine crumbs, put them in a bowl and add a can of condensed milk. Mix it in until it’s all nice and stodgy.

Digestives blitzed to crumbs in a food processor beside the opened biscuit packet

Once you’ve done that, stick it all in a loaf tin (I had to get one of these as well. Only £3 though, the food processor was £25!) and make it flat and quite solid. Once you’ve done this, you’re ready to add the caramelised milk. Just go ahead and slap it on, then make that nice and flat too (well, as flat as you can, it’s not easy cos it’s very very sticky).

Spooning tinned caramel over the pressed biscuit base in a deep loaf tin

Now it’s chocolate melting time! Get 2 pans, one bigger than the other. Fill the larger one with boiling water and put it on the hob. Break all the chocolate into cubes and put it in your small pan. Put the small pan in the big pan and keep stirring it round (or it’ll burn). When it’s melted, try not to eat it all there and then and then put it over your cake then increase the flatness quotient (again).

Pouring melted chocolate from the pan over the caramel layer in the tin

Pop it into the freezer and leave it there for about an hour. After that it’ll be ready to try and get out of the tin. Get a knife and cut round the top of the chocolate to loosen it out and then put a chopping board or plate or something over the tin and turn it all upside-down. Then, get another plate and do the same again to get it the right way up.

The finished slab turned out on a plate beside a normal caramel shortcake bar

Then it’s ready to eat! Gone from 6½ to 22cm long and from 21g to 1.9kg! And have fun trying to get through that chocolate!

The slab served on a plate at a laid table with candle, wine and fork

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