| Level: | Intermediate |
| Total: | 3 hr 25 min |
| Prep: | 15 min |
| Inactive: | 2 hr 30 min |
| Cook: | 40 min |
| Yield: | 36 bars |
Ingredients
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
- 1 1/2 cups sweetened condensed milk
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar (not packed)
- 3 tablespoons cookie butter, such as Biscoff or Speculoos
- 1 teaspoon fine salt
- 4 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
- 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
- Flaky salt, such as fleur de sel
- 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes, plus extra melted for coating the pan
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for coating the pan
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
Instructions
- For the shortbread layer: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Using a pastry brush, butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish and coat with flour, tapping off excess.
- Put the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse. Add the butter and pulse until the dough just comes together. Press the shortbread mixture into the prepared pan and bake until golden brown around the edges, about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool completely.
- For the cookie butter layer: In a 5-quart saucepan over moderately-low heat, combine the sweetened condensed milk, brown sugar, cookie butter and salt. Slowly bring the mixture to a boil, stirring continuously. Continue stirring over the heat until the mixture becomes thick and amber in color, about 15 minutes. Pour the mixture over the cooked shortbread and spread evenly using an offset spatula. Cool to room temperature.
- For the chocolate topping: In a bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, melt the chocolate with the oil. Once the chocolate has melted, pour it over the cooled caramel layer. Cool at room temperature for about 10 minutes, and then put in the refrigerator to cool completely, allowing the chocolate to slightly harden but not too hard. Cut into 2-inch pieces. Garnish with flaky salt before serving.
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 36 servings |
| Calories | 140 |
| Total Fat | 7 g |
| Saturated Fat | 4 g |
| Carbohydrates | 18 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Sugar | 12 g |
| Protein | 2 g |
| Cholesterol | 15 mg |
| Sodium | 75 mg |
Reviews
Taken from America’s Test Kitchen. ATK uses shaved chocolate and coconut oil for the chocolate layer. ATK also uses a candy thermometer ,which is integral for the caramel to reach the proper temperature.
I am so pleased with these. They are like homemade Twix Bars. They are delicious. I do not have a food processer, so I used the paddle attachment on my mixer and it worked great. I spread the caramel layer on very quickly, which was necessary, because it hardens very quickly. And, I doubled the chocolate for the top layer. Smart decision!
Surprisingly not overly sweet, was expecting a real rich bar. Caramel layer was cooked longer then directed, also with the shortbread. Lack of sweetness is probably due to the crust layer being so much thicker then the other two layers. I had to add double the dark chocolate to have enough to spread. Do yourself a favor and add parchment for less mess. Otherwise, real chewy but a tasty treat.
Love this recipe! I try to make it for Christmas favors, but eat a good bit myself!!! Time consuming, but worth it!
What seemed like a simple recipe was actually a bit complicated. I had to use more than twice as much butter to get the cookie layer to resemble anything like a dough, and it took about 27 minutes to cook.
A regular can of sweetened condensed milk is only 1.25 cups, so I had to improvise and make my own using powdered milk, butter, etc. to make up for the last quarter cup. I didn’t want to risk not having enough of the caramel for the middle layer! This recipe should be adjusted to use two cans of condensed milk – I certainly wouldn’t have minded a thicker middle layer. It also never turned “amber” but it did thicken up a bit, and turned out to be a nice caramel layer after everything cooled down.
I also used twice as much chocolate as called for – the top layer was far too thin!
I just put the finished dish in the refrigerator overnight and cut it up in the morning. The chocolate layer gets hard, but it you let it sit for a few minutes before cutting, it will be fine. I also recommend putting a layer of parchment paper in the bottom of your dish and extending it over the sides of the handles so you can lift it out of the dish to cut it more easily.
Have made multiple times now and they always turn out great. Just make sure not to over cook the middle layer, it never seems to take the full 15 minutes. Besides that just follow the recipe and they should turn out delicious!
While I didn’t have a problem with the cookies separating or the caramel getting too hard, we just felt like these were bland, and nothing especially great. The shortbread layer had to cook much longer for me, as did the caramel layer, and it just didn’t taste great for us.
Awesome!
I made this and won our cookie contest. I had to make some adjustments to recipe. For me, the amounts for the middle and top layers needed to be increased so that it could cover the entire 9×13 Pyrex I used. For shortbread, I followed recipe as directed. i sprayed baking dish with cooking spray, then baked for 22 minutes so it was golden brown. Cooled for an hour. Cookie butter layer needed to taste more like cookie butter and less like caramel so I added more Cookie Butter. I used 2/3 cup of Speculous Cookie Butter. It was just enough to spread over the entire shortbread layer. For the chocolate layer, I melted 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips with 1 tablespoon of coconut oil. Chocolate layer needs to cool in the fridge overnight. I peeked in fridge every hour and finally decided to deal with it in the morning. The final result was a cookie that tasted like a Twix candy. People loved it.
Very good, because of the previous reviews I was careful not to overcook the middle layer. I will make more!