Buccaneer Shortbread

Another tasty twist on the more traditional Millionaire's Shortbread, from Shivi Ramoutar of The Rum Kitchen restaurants, via The Guardian's "Cook" supplement (scroll down to the fourth recipe). This time there are spices and coconut in the shortbread to increase the flavour components, and the caramel and chocolate layers are lightly salted too.

This is quite a rich recipe, and makes a big batch, but I felt justified in making it, as CT was coming to dinner and could take half home with him, to remove temptation. I had trouble making the caramel, which split as it was simmering, but
I rescued it with this tip about adding hot water.

All the layers were very thin, and I think it would have been better made in a slightly smaller tin. This would make the bars less fragile to handle after cutting too - the crumbliness of the shortbread and the gooiness of the caramel, combined with hard set chocolate did not make neat, photogenic bars!

All that aside, these were delicious! The spices and salt cut through the sweetness a little, and the coconut was definitely a good flavour to add to the shortbread base.