millionaires cupcakes

The other week, heavily pregnant Mia arrived with a bag of irresistible millionaire's shortbread. In the bag, were four individual chocolate topped shortbread in large muffin cases. I was inspired. What a great way of  serving the often messy to cut indulgence. Better still, she told me she just whizzed up a packet of shortbread fingers, added some melted butter and just pressed them into the white paper cases. So, last week I gave it a go. I think my shortbread base was too thick but Stu, being slightly Scottish loved it. With the caramel, I couldn't decide whether to boil the condensed milk in the tin, in a vat of water for several hours and risk it exploding, or, to use the other and quicker method - heating it in a pan with butter and sugar. I went for the later, I wanted full fat, billionaires shortbread.

And congratulations Mia and Sam, who have since given birth to a little girl called Mali -  very perfect and very beautiful.

Mia's Millionaires Cupcakes

1 packet 'all butter' shortbread fingers
50g melted butter

...for the caramel
120g butter
120g soft brown sugar
397g tin of condensed milk
large pinch of sea salt flakes

200g  chocolate (70% cocoa)
1 tsp sunflower oil

1. Empty biscuits in food processor and whizz.


2. Melt butter and pour in to whizzing crumbs.


3. Press the biscuit mixture evenly into the 12 (or more) cup cake / muffin cases.


4. Empty all the caramel ingredients into a saucepan and heat gently, stirring constantly until starting to caramelise. You want it to be a toffee colour although that is not essential.


5. Place the muffin tray in the fridge.


6. Break chocolate pieces into a bowl and heat over a pan of hot water.


7. Once melted, add a teaspoon of sunflower oil. This is suppose to add a gloss to the chocolate like tempering but It didn't really work for me, but neither does tempering, but that's another story....

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