How to Make One of Our Most Popular Cookies–Millionaire’s Shortbread

[Music]
today we’re making a well-loved British
cookie called millionaire’s shortbread
it’s a sturdy shortbread topped with
caramel and chocolate it’s kind of like
the original Twix bar we don’t have to
choose the right or left I know you get
to eat it all whole pan is a triple
level threat in terms of cookies you’ve
got that shortbread bottom it’s got kind
of this toffee caramel filling and then
chocolate right on top mm-hmm so it’s
millionaire’s because it’s rich lots of
rich ingredients also you know it’s a
little bit more expensive to make them
the original shortbread so that has some
to do with the name so this is two and a
half cups of all-purpose flour I’m going
to add a half a cup of granulated sugar
and 3/4 teaspoon of salt now you’ll see
salt going into just about every part of
this recipe because millionaire sherbet
can also be a little too sweet so whisk
this together all right so that looks
good so now we’re going to add melted
butter so this is 16 tablespoons of
unsalted butter
we’re just going to pour this over our
dry ingredients and then work it in
you’re gonna see it’s gonna turn really
really thick since we’re using melted
butter not creaming butter or cutting in
cold butter this is going to be a lot
more sturdy we want to make sure that we
get any of those flour pockets on the
bottom of the bowl worked in – it’s kind
of a dough at this point so you can see
how thick that is yeah so let’s bring it
over to our pan now this is a 9 by 13
inch pan gone ahead and lined it with a
foil sling very important anytime you’re
making any kind of bar cookie which this
is and it’s 2 pieces of foil and we’ve
shaped it so that one goes right across
and the other one goes right in its
gonna make it easy to just retrieve it
out of the pan and slice it so I’ll
crumble this over just to distribute it
a little bit more evenly at the start
you smell that butter oh that’s a good
day so now I’m gonna use my hand and
just press this out into an even layer
so that our next layer which is the
caramel will also be nice and even this
is looking pretty good and it’s going to
continue to even out as it bakes in the
oven all right so now before we put it
in the oven we take a fork and we’re
just going to make little marks about an
inch apart from each other if you didn’t
do this the shortbread would sort of
bubble up in places and you’d have these
big ugly lumps not a nice even try
bread all right so this is going to go
into a 350-degree oven it’ll stay in
there until the top gets nice and light
brown it’s gonna take about 25 up to 30
minutes we’ll also notice that the top
will feel nice and firm oh it smells so
good look at that beautiful shortbread
beautifully even in golden so I’m just
gonna take my hands gingerly it’s hot
but I just want to make sure that that
surface is nice and firm now we do want
to compact this a little bit because
later on when we go just slice it we
don’t want it to crumble all over the
place we know we’re gonna get some
crumbling we don’t want too much so
we’re gonna use just a burger flipper as
I like to call it long metal spatula and
press down in there now the spatula can
get a little bit hot so you might want
to grab the top of it with a towel
by the time you get to the second side
it gets really hot and this is great
because it’s also going to compact right
into those corners all right so we’re
gonna let this sit here you want to let
it cool down for at least 20 minutes
before you top it but you can actually
let it cool completely as well gives us
time to talk a little bit about the
caramel the good part yes and this is
almost I like to call it a caramel
toffee mixture because it is much deeper
in flavor than a traditional caramel and
actually we found that the recipes all
start with sweetened condensed milk this
is one 14 ounce can so sweet and
condensed milk because caramel can be
very chewy and sticky and this makes it
a little softer so easier to eat exactly
mmm I give that to you and we have 7
ounces or 1 cup of firmly packed brown
sugar you can use light you can use dark
we also have a half a cup of corn syrup
and that’s really going to help the
caramel stay nice and chewy stick of
unsalted butter 8 tablespoons it’s cut
into small pieces and a half a teaspoon
of salt now we did find when we were
cooking this that sometimes the butter
would start to split and you’d end up
with the kind of a greasy layer on top
of the caramel that it all had to do
with how much they cook the sweet
condensed milk so what we found is the
more that they cook it the more the whey
proteins in the milk were broken down
and they’re needed in there to keep the
butter together so we’re adding a half a
cup of heavy cream which has just the
right amount of whey proteins and our
butter will not split so heavy cream
makes a foolproof caramel layer exactly
so we’re gonna put this over medium heat
I’ll stir it every once in a while it’s
not like a
traditional caramel but you don’t want
to stir we want to cook this until it
reaches between 236 to 239 degrees
that’s going to give us exactly the
right texture of caramel that’s gonna
take anywhere between 16 maybe up to 20
minutes all right we have achieved the
right temperature anywhere between 236
and to 39 it smells amazing
ahh it smells like toffee and a little
coffee and there’s no it tastes good
it’s gonna taste great all right we want
to get this out of the pan we’re going
to pour it right onto our crust that
looks so pretty having you pour it right
on like that we’re just going to smooth
this over and to the corners you can use
an offset spatula if you like and I just
want to finish smoothing it out oh good
all right we do want to let this
completely cool that’s going to take at
least one and a half hours and then we
can move on to the chocolate top the
caramel is set it’s beautiful it’s
completely cooled and it’s nice and firm
it is gorgeous system yeah it’s got a
nice mirror finish well we’re gonna
cover it all up a chocolate it’s all
good so we’re starting off with 6 ounces
of bittersweet chocolate we’ve chopped
this very fine that’s very important for
our tempering method because we want
this to melt evenly so we’re gonna
microwave this at 50% power and I’ll
stir it every 15 seconds until it’s just
melted we don’t want to overheat the
chocolate at this point we’re gonna pull
it out when the bottom of the bowl is
just slightly warmer than my hand all
right so this is looking good
it’s just a few pieces of chocolate that
are still unknown in there but as I stir
this I know that they’re gonna melt
right in so this total melting process
up to this point so only take one to two
minutes depending on the microwave so
this looks good and now we’re going to
add more chocolate this is 2 ounces of
bittersweet chocolate very finely grated
yeah so we’re gonna pour this in here
I’m gonna stir this in now tiny little
particles of chocolate are going to melt
in very easily and since we haven’t
really disturbed their structure the
beta crystals are still intact in here
and that’s gonna set off a chain
reaction as the rest of the chocolate
cools down and it’s going to help to
temper our chocolate so if this looks
like it’s not actually melting all the
way you can always take it back to the
microwave only for about 5 seconds at a
time and
it is just mountain all right so that is
beautiful and glossy and fully melted so
this is gonna go right on the caramel
and it’s just a thin veneer of chocolate
this is not really a chocolate dessert
it’s a caramel too there it is really
fun to watch you make this every layer
just looks better and better oh good
alright so now I’m gonna take an offset
spatula I love these tiny little ones
helps get into all those little crevices
we’re gonna quickly spread this over the
top getting right to the edges into the
corners so this is going to go into the
fridge just until the chocolate is set
that’s gonna take about ten minutes it’s
time for the payoff Julia yay ten
minutes in the fridge the chocolate is
just set so now we’re gonna get it out
of the pan and thanks to the foil sling
that should be very easy I love this
sling trick and it works well for all
sorts of bar cookies and brownies there
we go
heal this back and now I’m gonna lift it
up if you wouldn’t mind taking that foil
away you bet it’s even prettier out of
the pan it serves one we’re gonna cut
these into smaller pieces because a
little bit goes a long way and it’s very
easy to do but you do want to use a
serrated knife I like to score through
the chocolate first so I’m going to cut
it width wise or crosswise right in half
there we go so now each of these gets
cut again in half just a little bit of
the sawing gentle and we’ll go ahead and
cut this one in half as well so now each
one of these gets cut into ten pieces
this is where you really want to go slow
here there we go two for you two for me
because I’m gonna say oh I only want one
Bridget man I’m gonna say where’s my
other one bring it these are just
beautiful I mean those layers are so
nice and even and like you said not a
thick layer chocolate just that thin
veneer on top it’s beautiful
yeah it’s just enough of that
bittersweet chocolate you’re gonna say
it’s perfect combination
mmm-hmm shut the door this is really
good it’s not only the flavor
it’s the texture it’s the firmness of
the shortbread and that caramel layer
has the perfect texture these are simply
amazing Brigitte well done thank you so
if you want to be a millionaire you have
to get your hands a little dirty and use
them to press in a quick shortbread
crust into a baking pan a combination of
sweetened condensed milk and heavy cream
makes a foolproof caramel layer then the
whole shebang is topped off with a
beautiful layer of tempered chocolate
from our Test Kitchen to your kitchen a
top drawer recipe for a millionaire’s
shortbread the field which are already
mm-hmm pay you in shortbread hmm thanks
for watching America’s Test Kitchen what
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