Dark Chocolate Caramel Oat & Almond Shortbread
“Children ask better questions than adults. “May I have a cookie?” “Why is the sky blue?” and “What does a cow say?” are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than “Where’s your manuscript?” Why haven’t you called?” and “Who’s your lawyer?“”
Fran Lebowitz
“Can I have another squaaaaaaare pleeeeeeease?” You know the cookies are good if that’s what you hear literally reverberating through the house; even better if it’s the call from the dieting diva square after square! These were indeed GOOD … Dark Chocolate Caramel Oat & Almond Shortbread cookies!
There’s something about December, and something about cookies that make me want to bake; bake all the time actually even though power cuts continue to play spoilsport. Baking around silly powerless situations means more cookies since there are fewer chances of them ‘deflating‘ {unlike cakes} when the lights go off!
The wookies were fabulous for fast track ‘faux baking‘. This shortbread is too, non traditional as it may be. You can’t go wrong with shortbread, caramel and dark chocolate, can you? A combination inspired from many shortbread posts, especially this Chocolate Caramel Slice from Nash @ Plateful, and a ‘Month of shortbread baking‘ from Julia @ ‘Mélanger :: to mix’.
This is the season of holiday baking, and only good could come out of such delicious inspiration. GOOD DELICIOUS COOKIES! Winter is the only indulgent time of the year here when shortbread feels ‘guilt-less; you need the butter to keep you warm after all. Warm weather the rest of the year makes the crumb not keep together nice and crisp! For the record, this isn’t true shortbread; the traditional version doesn’t venture away from a 8:4:2 classic combination of flour, butter and sugar… and a dash of salt perhaps.
I had on hand hungry kids, butter and a ‘want to bake’ feeling; also a loose bottomed square tin that I had recently bought and was impatient to use. That resulted in … Oats + Almonds + Flour + Butter + Brown Sugar = Crisp shortbread base.
… to which was added some salted butter caramel {adapted from Jamies sweet blog}, the top smothered in deep, luscious, dark melted chocolate; then briefly left to set! Simple as can be. Next with my Ergo chef knife, the slab was cut into squares {you can do bars/rectangles…whatever grabs your fancy}. YUM! ENJOY!
Dark Chocolate Caramel Oat & Almond Shortbread …
Ingredients
- 110gm all purpose flour
- 35gm rolled oats
- 65gm whole almonds
- 60gm brown sugar
- 100gm unsalted butter, chilled, cut into cubes
- 1/2 cup salted caramel butter sauce {recipe follows}
- 150gm dark chocolate, melted
Salted Butter Caramel Sauce
- 3/4 cup granulated white sugar
- 4 tbs salted butter
- 200ml low fat cream
Instructions
Dark Chocolate Caramel Oat & Almond Shortbread
- Preheat oven to 160C.
- Place flour, oats, brown sugar and almonds in processor and process until ground {Thermomix: Speed10, 30 seconds}
- Add chilled butter and process briefly until breadcrumb like mix. {Thermomix: Speed 6, 5-7 seconds}
- Turn into lined 8X 8" square tray, pat into place and bake for about 45 minutes until light golden brown and firm.
- Cool completely.
- Run the salted butter caramel sauce in microwave until warm and melted. {Will still be thick batter like}
- Pour it over the cooled shortcrust, and spread evenly with an offset spatula. Leave in fridge for about an hour to cool completely.
- Melt the dark chocolate in the microwave or double boiler, and pour evenly over the caramel. Handle the melted chocolate as little as you can to keep it shiny. Spread with an offset spatula to the edges. Leave to set in the fridge for about an hour. Cut into squares.
Salted Butter Caramel Sauce
- Melt the sugar in a medium-sized saucepan over medium-low heat and cook until completely melted and caramel in color. Lower the heat to low and whisk in the butter in about 3 or 4 additions.
- Continuing to whisk, add the cream in a slow stream; the caramel may foam up, but keep whisking, as it will calm down once all the cream is added and will turn to… a smooth caramel. Once it is smooth and creamy, remove from the heat and allow to cool at least to tepid before serving.
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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India
Deeba @ PAB
About me: I am a freelance food writer, recipe developer and photographer. Food is my passion - baking, cooking, developing recipes, making recipes healthier, using fresh seasonal produce and local products, keeping a check on my carbon footprint and being a responsible foodie! I enjoy food styling, food photography, recipe development and product reviews. I express this through my food photographs which I style and the recipes I blog. My strength lies in 'Doing Food From Scratch'; it must taste as good as it looks, and be healthy too. Baking in India, often my biggest challenge is the non-availability of baking ingredients, and this has now become a platform to get creative on. I enjoy cooking immensely as well.
26 Comments
Rosa
A wonderful Xmas treat! Irresistible.
Cheers,
Rosa
a spoonful of yumm
what does a cow say cracked me up ! kids say the darndest things 😀 love the fairy tag deeba….hope you’re having a fun festive season 🙂 xo, shruti
Brian @ A Thought For Food
You really can’t go wrong with shortbread… I have no doubt this will make a wonderful holiday present!
Marla
Came dashing over from interest. These bars look great. I love the oat & nut combo.
jehanne@thecookingdoctor
looks yum indeed, Deeba..love your antique sweet box..just love love those chocolatey bars,perfect for xmas!
Hasna
Drooling into ur pix and those shortbreads…..yumm
Mitali Desai
Hi Deeba! I was wondering if you use quick cooking oats or regular oats? I find it very hard to find regular oats here. (small town blues!)
Deeba @ PAB
Hi Mitali. I use Quaker oats that come in the blue bag. Other stuff I use can be found on the link here …
Hope this helps!!
Mitali
Thanks, Deeba. We get the blue bag oats here. ( yay!) for some reason I always thought the “cooks in 3 mins” kinds cannot be used for baking! This is the first oats recipe I’m going to try!
Keerthana
Deeba, I have always been a silent admirer of your lovely blog. These bars look so great and great pictures as always!
Happy holidays to you!
Poornima
What an awesome gift these would make!! They look fabulous!
Patricia Shea
Those look truly delicious – I am going to a cookie/biscuit swap this Thursday – maybe I’ll do this :)))) Thanks Deeba!!
judith
I think this kind of chocolate are taste good..Thanks for sharing this to us..I am craving to this chocolate..
Delishhh
As always just gorgeous! YUM!
Anna
The rustic edges are so authentic. I love the dark chocolate flavor, gives shortbread lovers more reasons to enjoy a delightful treat! Gonna make a big bunch of these for the kids 😉 Thanks for sharing!
Asmita
OMG, this looks superb! Your photographs look stunning. You have presented it so beautifully. Happy holidays.
divya
Hi I have been following your blog for sometime now… and love the way you present your recipes. I tried making this recipe, guess i didnt use salted butter and tried adding salt to unsalted butter, result was it became a bit too salty!!! but its turned out quiet well!! Esp with my hsband hovering around me to finish and taste it:)
i have tried salted caramel for the first time, didnt realise it was this easy, and YUMMY!!
Thanks again.
Deeba @ PAB
Hi Divya, Thank you for your sweet words, and for trying the recipe {and for taking time to write back!}
Have a wonderful new year!
Karen
Making these now:) Just think the measurements in the recipe should be all the same either all metric or all U.S. Kind of cumbersome for the average home baker to go back and forth if you don’t have scale, etc.
Karen
I have read the recipe several times and don’t see where the brown sugar is incorporated…so I added to shortbread crust. Please clarify did I miss it?
Deeba @ PAB
You did it right. Sorry I missed it Karen. Updated now. 1000 apologies.
Joy
The short bread looks great. I am liking this recipe.
chandhana
Hi Deeba,
How did u manage to cut them so beautifully? I made these yesterday and the bars came out very very uneven.. even the crust started crumbling..
Deeba @ PAB
Hi Chandana, I used a really sharp heavy knife {my Ergo Chef knife} and swiftly cut.
Valerie
Thank you for the recipe, Deeba! This shortbread was spectacular! Nothing compares to salty caramel and buttery shortbread. 🙂
Sneha
This page just got bookmarked! Remind me (in terms of looks) of the Nanaimo bars I made last week – coconuty base, followed by vanilla custard topped with a thin layer of crunchy chocolate!