FLOWER POT KITCHEN: BILLIONAIRE’S SHORT BREAD

24 Jun 2021

BILLIONAIRE’S SHORT BREAD

The next level…

My teenage son made these and his baking attitude is Go Big or Go Home! He loves millionaire’s shortbread and decided to up them to Billionaire’s shortbread, a buttery shortbread base topped with a thick layer of caramel then a rich double chocolate and mascarpone fudge brownie and finished off with a dark and white chocolate slab and crushed daim bar pieces.

Prep time 10 minutes / Baking time 20 minutes / Chilling time 1 hour

Ingredients

(makes 9-12)

Shortbread Biscuit

225g plain flour

175g room temperature butter

80g caster sugar

1 pinch salt

Brownie

1 can carnation caramel

85g room temperature butter

225g golden caster sugar

2 eggs

100g 70% dark chocolate

3 tbsp cocoa powder

100g self raising flour

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1 tbsp caster sugar

200g mascarpone cream cheese

Finishing Touches

150g 70% dark chocolate

100g white chocolate

3 daim bars crushed

Pre heat your oven to 160 C fan / 315 F. Line your brownie tin with baking paper making sure you go over the top of the tin so you have handles to remove the cake once finished from the tin with ease. Make the shortbread base by hand this is important to ensure a light melt in the mouth shortbread, if you use a stand mixer the shortbread will be tough. Rub the butter into the flour to resemble fine breadcrumbs, stir in the sugar and salt, pour into your brownie tin and using the back of a spoon gently press down to form a biscuit base. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.

Beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy, melt the butter and 100g dark chocolate together and stir in the cocoa powder, pour the chocolate mix into the beaten eggs and mix well, loosely fold in the flour. Mix the vanilla essence, caster sugar in to the mascarpone cream cheese.

Spread the caramel on top of the shortbread, spread half the brownie batter on top of the caramel, then the mascarpone cream cheese rolled by the remaining brownie batter, bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes until just cooked but still soft to the touch.

Leave to cool in the tin, melt the dark and white chocolate in separate bowls over a pan of simmering water or in the microwave, pour the dark chocolate over the brownie and spread even over the top, then dollop the white chocolate in five random portions and using a skewer swirl through the white chocolate marbling through the dark chocolate, bash the daim bars in their packing with a rolling pin and sprinkle over the chocolate, pop in the fridge to set the chocolate around one hour.

Remove from the tin and with a sharp knife cut into nine or twelve squares and enjoy.

No comments:

LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.