The only millionaires shortbread I’ve ever had is the one from Starbucks. They don’t even call it millionaires shortbread though. They call it a chocolate caramel shortbread. But I’m pretty sure they’re the same thing…..I think.
Anyway, I recently found out that people make millionaires brownies too. I NEEDED to experience the taste of one myself.
TEN OUT OF TEN, so much better than a regular degular millionaires shortbread, I am in love with these!!
Video Tutorial
Making the caramel
The caramel used for these, and for most millionaires shortbreads, is a lot easier to make than a regular caramel sauce. All you are doing is adding the ingredients into a pot and heating them until the mixture changes colour.
However, there are a few things that can go wrong so here are a few tips:
Use a non-stick pot with high sides
Whiles cooking, this caramel bubbles and rises up a lot. So if you use a pot that is not very tall, the caramel will just bubble over and go all over your stove.
Speaking from personal experience, cleaning this will give you nothing but stress for the rest of the day, so it is best to try and avoid this.
Keep an eye on the colour
The way to know when this caramel is ready is by looking at the colour.
Once the caramel turns into a light golden colour, take it off the heat.
The darker the caramel gets, the chewier and harder it will be after it has set. So if you cook it for too long, it’s not a huge problem. The texture will just be different to the texture we are going for.
Keep stirring during the cooking process
With caramel, you might have heard not to stir whiles it is cooking.
This caramel is different though, you need to make sure to keep stirring it.
The sugar burns easily. So if you walk away from it, you will end up with a caramel with pieces of burnt sugar in it.
Leave the heat on medium
Again, the sugar in this burns easily. So try not to increase the heat to make the process go quicker. It will just cause too many problems!
Do I have to use dark chocolate?
In this recipe, there is two different times where dark chocolate is used. The first is for the brownie batter, and the second time is for the top, chocolate layer.
For the brownie batter, the answer to the question is YES. Any other chocolate will change the texture of the brownie.
For the top layer, I like to use dark chocolate to help cut the sweetness.
This brownie is already very sweet, so adding milk or white chocolate will add a lot more sweetness to it. But if you wanted too, you could!
Why did you add oil to the chocolate layer?
The top layer was just melted chocolate and some flavourless oil.
The oil helps keep the chocolate soft after it has set. I like it to be softer, but you could leave it out!
Millionaires Brownies
Ingredients
- For the brownie:
140g unsalted butter
85g dark chocolate
3 eggs
120g granulated sugar
120g brown sugar
60g plain flour
30g cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
- For the caramel:
80g butter (I use unsalted, but salted works too)
300g condensed milk
40g golden syrup
110g granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
- For the chocolate topping:
180g dark chocolate (or any chocolate you want)
2 tablespoons any flavourless oil (I use vegetable)
Directions
- Making the brownies:
- Start by pre-heating you oven to 180c/350f. Also grease and line the bottom and sides of a square 8 inch cake tin.
- In a bowl, add the butter and chocolate. Put this into the microwave and heat until melted. Leave this aside to cool down.
- In a large bowl, add the eggs and both sugars. Whip this until the mixture lightens in colour and almost doubles in volume.
- Mix in the melted butter and chocolate. Then add the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Mix until you get a smooth batter.
- Add this into your tin and bake for around 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out with a few crumbs on it. Leave this to cool.
- Making the caramel:
- In a non-stick pot that has high sides, add in the butter, condensed milk, golden syrup and sugar. Try not to add in the sugar into the pot first, when it is at the bottom it tends to burn easily.
- Put this onto medium heat and keep heating, whiles STIRRING CONSTANTLY, until the mixture thickens and turns into a golden colour.
- Take this off the heat and pour onto your brownies, leave this in the fridge for about 10 minutes before adding the chocolate.
- Making the chocolate topping:
- Add the chocolate and oil into a bowl and heat this until melted and smooth.
- Pour this over the caramel layer, then smooth it out.
- Leave the brownie in the fridge for about an hour so that everything can set. Then cut into it and serve at room temperature!
