Millionaire's or Caramel Shortbread

The meanderings of the week, a new flour mill and a recipe for millionaire's shortbread with a panela and creme fraiche butterscotch.

Hello,

I hope you have had a good week. It has been a somewhat muddled week at the steading, I feel a little in limbo and it’s not just because I can’t sit down. This has called for comfort and the greatest comfort I know comes in the form of millionaire’s shortbread the recipe for which is at the bottom of this article.

How do you like your butterscotch?

---

Welcome to Moments through food. Here I write to you weekly from my steading in the Scottish borders, telling stories about food and ingredients alongside my slightly obsessive recipe development. I am here to give you the tools to understand how or why things work in recipes. This helps you to build confidence in the kitchen as well as being able to alter recipes to suit your own time schedules or tastes. Cooking and baking need to work for you. I am a baker, recipe developer, cook and mum. Co-founder and creative behind the award winning bakery Twelve Triangles as well as author of Kitchen Table - simple things made well.

If you would like to join my community please subscribe below for free. You will receive weekly emails with stories and recipes as well as having access to my archive and subscriber chat.

---

A sudden twang.

I am currently oscillating between standing and horizontal. A most middle aged occurrence happened last weekend. I was gardening, reaching for a particularly stubborn weed just out of my grasp, it was nestled between two cobblestones its roots entangled beneath. I was not going to be defeated, I edged myself a little closer leaning forward when twang something went in my lower back. It has been years since this last happened, after I had Charlie it was a semi-regular affair. I would have to call to Iain as I got stuck coming down the stairs or getting off a chair, thank god he worked from home shouting for him to take Charlie before I dropped him (much to my pride I never did). Heavy breathing would ensue as pain darted through my pelvis and back, lighting rods piercing to my core, there was even a fun one which would shoot down my left leg. The intense pain would normally withdraw after half an hour or so to be left with a deep thrum, a high note of pain let out again at any sudden movement. The echo of the event would last for days, sometimes weeks. I went to see a chiropractor which whilst it may have helped ended unfortunately with a hand written note dropped to my house, not overly sinister but enough to fill me with unease. I decided pain was preferable.

Flour escapades

I went on an adventure to a local town, Peebles by local I mean over an hours drive from our steading. There was a shop there which sold a flour from a community mill Lapwings which is based in Stonehaven. I spoke to Coralie who owns the mill a few weeks ago, I am hoping to go and visit her soon to learn more about how the mill works and visit the farms. She set up the mill there over three years ago with the purpose of working directly with local farmers creating a small network from field to oven. Choosing and growing grain that suits their soils as well as for flavour, nutrition and usability. She has a French stoneground mill which she runs a few times a week milling flours and different cereals for local bakers and the community. I am becoming more and more preoccupied with how our flour is made, the farmers growing the grain, how the soil is treated. The extreme use of glyphosate coupled with the fortification of flours mean we seem to be getting less and less control over what is added to our food. Bread which is one of the staples and arguably something incredibly simple which should contain a few pure ingredients is becoming more and more chemically adjusted. I want to find a way to have some control over what I make, eat and sell to the community of people around me. To have some agency over how I produce my food. Since returning from my flour trip I have used her flour to bake bread as well as adding it into this shortbread recipe. The spelt has the most gloriously nutty flavour, the texture of the flour is a little sandy with very fine particles of the wholegrain through it this makes it great for adding to biscuits and pastry.

I have made a few things with it so far this week to give you an idea of different area’s of your kitchen you can use more unique flours in.

Noodles, Bread, Shortbread

1. I made these egg noodles, following the recipe from Dumplings and Noodles by Pippa Middlehurst which is one of my favourites in the kitchen. I add kansui (an alkaline solution) to the dough to help keep them chewy, I also removed some of the white flour and added in wholemeal spelt. The spelt helped the elasticity of the noodles whilst adding the most incredible flavour - a little like digestive biscuits but in a good noodle appropriate way.

2. I made a sourdough with 20% wholemeal spelt flour and 20% wholemeal flour from Lapwings, resulting in one of the best roast chicken sandwiches i’ve had. I added cooked spelt grain to the dough following what I had learnt through last week’s hydration post adding as much water as I felt the loaf could hold, mixing by hand to notice the adjustments. The bread itself was soft but not gummy as some wholemeal loaves can feel. It was a little reminiscent of the custardy texture of my porridge loaf but more aromatic, earthy. Charlie as always was upset that it wasn’t square.

3. I add the wholemeal spelt flour into this week’s shortbread base recipe, for flavour and to help with the slightly sandy texture of shortbread.

This week’s origins

I began this week with a simple craving for millionaire’ shortbread, I am tired and feeling a little stagnant so it seemed like a simple task. I developed this recipe for my cookbook Kitchen Table and it has been on the counter in Twelve Triangles for a few years now. It is nostalgia laden, woven through the backdrop of my life. Sitting at the cafe in the leisure centre after swimming lessons as a child, a cheese toastie on sliced white with flavourless stringy cheese molten and oily dribbling to the plate. The treat after a slice of millionaire’s shortbread, incredibly sweet and always hard to eat. The ratio and bake of shortbread, the set on the caramel and chocolate become the deciding factors for if it would crack cleanly or ooze, disintegrating in front of you. Crumbs of shortbread to be picked up with the sticky caramel fingers before being cleanly sucked clean.

I grew up outside of a town called Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland there is a river which runs through the back of it. We used to go to a gallery/cafe there called Peter Potters. Opening the door which was tucked into the side of the building, you fell straight into a small cramped gallery space, local paintings and ceramics in glass cases kept away from eager little hands. There was a tight wooden staircase to climb which took you into the eaves of the building, this is where the cafe resided. Low square orange pine tables with stools haphazardly clustered around them. Windows over the river where you could watch the swans gliding building their nests for the signets to arrive come summer. This was the home of my favourite millionaire’s shortbread. I don’t know what was special about it apart from the nostalgic honest home baking of the 90’s when home baking was truly that. No fancy equipment or piping, less shortcuts and processed foods. A pile of tray bakes and scones under perspex or sometimes glass domes on the counter, you knew what you were getting Biscoff and pistachio paste were not yet a thing. These are the memories I hold, the paths I wander when I think of this slice. Through my teens and twenties I gave it no thought my head filled with croissants, doughnuts and sourdough bread. I didn’t have time for such simple pleasures.

When Charlie came along and I moved back to the countryside this time towards the west I found myself back in these types of local spaces. Craving comfort whilst sitting on sad plastic chairs in artificially strip lit soft plays and leisure centres nothing was familiar in my world except these traybake’s. New ones had arrived during my absence in which whole chocolate bars were chopped and added on top, everything seemed double the size and sweetness but the millionaire’s was still there. I clung to this shortbread slice, a beacon of familiarity no longer did intricate viennoiserie hold my attention it was comfort I sought.

This week I intended to make the recipe from the book, photographing and sharing it with you as it was. Allowing myself a little grace after the mental flexibility needed to organise my thoughts on sourdough. I am hopeless at making the same thing twice, writing a cookbook was a struggle for this reason. I am always learning, whether it is about ingredients, techniques or my preferences changing, I want to push myself so I decided to tinker. It always niggled at me that the recipe in the book used condensed milk considering it was a book that focused on ingredients, due to experience and time pressures I couldn’t work out an alternative but now I have.

Boiling butterscotch.

I have spent the week pushing and pulling the flavours and textures to find something new, to find a little excitement with my comfort. I have increased the wholegrain flour in the shortbread adding in some cornflour to maintain a short crumbliness and used melted butter, as suggested to me by Justine. The caramel or butterscotch as I have made is where the big structural and flavour changes come in. It was always made with panela sugar (a raw cane sugar) for a slightly molasses tang, I felt never quite enough flavour came once it was damped by the smooth sweetness of condensed milk. I have removed the condensed milk completely and made a butterscotch with panela, butter and creme fraiche to really bring a sharpness to it. I have tried a few different sets on the butterscotch, you can control this by what temperature you take it to, 112c is for a soft set which will cascade as you bite through the crisp chocolate topping. 115c is for a chewier butterscotch which leaves toothmarks as you pull away. It’s rather satisfying and a whole let less stressful to cut.

The oozier version.

Millionaire’s Shortbread Recipe

Makes 12 greedy pieces

Ingredients

Shortbread base

• 150g wholemeal flour, I used spelt

• 50g cornflour

• 100g plain flour

• 100g panela

• 1/2 tsp of flaky sea salt

• 225g melted butter

Caramel

• 125g butter

• 400g panela sugar

• 280g creme fraiche

• 1 1/2 - 2 tsp flaky sea salt

Chocolate topping

• 140g dark chocolate (66-70%)

• 10g butter

Method

• Begin by lining a 9” x 9” tin or similar proportions with greaseproof paper.

• Heat the oven to 170c fan

• Weigh and mix the three flours, salt and sugar into a bowl.

• Melt the butter then add it into the dry ingredients and stir until it becomes a smooth dough.

• Flatten this into the base of your tin, you can use the heel of your palms to push it down then dip the back of a spoon in cool water to smooth it out.

• Bake it in the oven for 25 minutes until lightly golden around the edges.

• To make the butterscotch melt the butter then add in the sugar. Stir until combined and allow it to come to the boil and bubble for a few minutes this helps the sugar to dissolve.

• Add the creme fraiche into the pan, it will boil up so be careful before it melts backdown. Bring this to the boil and allow it to bubble away. The next stage and timings will depend on the volume of mix you have in what sized pan, for me it took around 10 minutes of boiling for the oozy caramel and 14 minutes for the chewy.

• To check its ready is either by the temperature if you have a thermometer, make sure it isn’t touching the bottom of you pan as this will read hotter if its on the surface of the pan, try to hover it within the butterscotch. 112c for oozy and 115c for chewy

• If you don’t have a thermometer you can check if it has reached soft ball stage ( this is what we want) by having a glass of ice water next to you. If you drop a little of your butterscotch into the water and it stays as a malleable ball it is ready. If it disperses and holds no form it needs longer. Another back up is similar to testing marmalade you can have a saucer in the freezer and spoon a little onto it allow it to cool then swipe your finger through and see if it feels firm. (take the butterscotch off the heat whilst checking)

• Once you are happy with your butterscotch add the salt and taste. Allow it to cool for around 5 minutes before pouring onto your shortbread base. Let this set for a few hours before topping.

• In a double boiler melt the chocolate with the butter once it is fluid pour it onto your set butterscotch. You can rotate the tin to allow the chocolate to cover the surface. Put this in the fridge to set.

• To cut heat a large knife under very hot water, the heat will help it melt through the chocolate and caramel allowing you a clean cut. Portioning millionaire’s is always stressful I am sorry, if it cracks who cares it will taste delicious anyway.

Notes

1. If you cannot find panela sugar you can do a mix of 50/50 light and dark brown to mimic the flavour.

2. You can use any type of wholemeal flour, I used spelt but you could use emmer, einkorn or plain wheat wholemeal.

3. If you put the butterscotch layer on and it doesn’t seem to set, scoop it off put it back in a pan and reboil.

Thank you for joining me this week, I hope you found something here for you. I would love if you try this to let me know how it goes and what you think. I hope you enjoy the sunshine that is coming, Charlie is at the ready with his paddling pool and BBQ.

Emily

x

---

You can buy my debut cookbook Kitchen Table- simple things made well

It is a recipe book focused on some of my favourite suppliers telling their stories. It is filled with recipes to make the most of these beautiful ingredients as well as minimising waste. Chapters are split into ingredients like olive oil, butter, fruit, milk & cream etc. You will find recipes for baking, cooking and fermenting.