I've always wanted to make the perfect Millionaire Shortbread, but my idea of perfection keeps changing and that's been an impediment. But this week I finally found my new favorite square pan recipe. All three components work! The shortbread is soft enough to cut without crumbling, the caramel is deeply flavored and the topping is a thick layer of straight up milk chocolate. I went a little crazy writing details for this post, so here's a jump to the recipe button.

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8 Inch Square Pan

This recipe is better than others I’ve made, plus I personally like it because it only makes one 8 inch square pan. You can double it and make a 9x13 inch pan, but an 8 inch pan goes a long way. For this recipe you'll weigh out half a can of condensed milk, so in anticipation of that you may want to also have ingredients to make a half batch of Animal Cracker Seven Layer Bars or homemade No-Churn Ice Cream.

Millionaire Shortbread Crust Notes

Butter -- I've tested store-brand butter and Vermont Creamy cultured butter. The crust is softer and easier to cut with the store-brand butter, but jagged and crumbly with the higher fat cultured butter. In a taste test, the cultured butter version would probably win, but I kind of preferred the softer texture of the store brand butter.

Salt -- Make sure to use enough. So many crusts are bland tasting from lack of salt, but with all the sugar the salt is a good counterpart.

Baking Powder -- Softens the crust a little without making it overly soft like cake flour or egg yolk. I'll be adding it to Millionaire Shortbread crust from now on.

All Purpose Flour -- I've been testing with slightly lower protein brands (Gold Medal as opposed to King Arthur) in an effort to keep the gluten lower for a more tender crust. I think it helps, but the jury is still out. It would be interesting to also test bleached against unbleached.

Millionaire Shortbread Caramel Layer

When I jumped back into making Millionaire Shortbread, I burned the first batch of caramel right away. Brown lumps appeared, they quickly multiplied, and then the caramel started to separate. I'm terrible with caramel in the first place, but I think the choice of ingredients increased the margin of error. The batch I burned used store- brand condensed milk and heavy cream. I read somewhere that some brands of condensed milk burn more easily based on the way they are treated. So I blamed it on the store-brand condensed milk, made it again with Eagle Brand and didn't have the burning issue. I also omitted the cream so I can't say it was a fair experiment! Anyhow, here are some tips for people who aren't naturally good at making caramel.

You know you're not supposed to scrape the pot while making caramel, but it's just as important to use the right size pot so that there's less surface area making contact with the candy. I recommend a 2 quart saucepan with a heavy, nonstick surface. I use a pot by Crofton I bought a while back at Aldi or Homegoods (I forgot).
Use Eagle Brand condensed milk just in case it's true that other brands burn quicker. I can't confirm or deny this yet.
Melt the butter gently, then stir in the sugar and other ingredients off heat so that mixture is homogeneous before you start cooking. Everything should cook at the same speed.
Cook the caramel at a steady simmer -- low and slow so that it takes about 15 minutes to hit 237.

Chocolate Topping

Millionaire Bars are great topped with straight-up milk chocolate. For this recipe I've tested with melted Dove Milk Chocolate Promises and a whole Lindt Bar which I just threw on top of the hot caramel. I like the method of putting solid chocolate on the hot caramel and let it kind of melt in best.

Here's the recipe!

Recipe