Bake off II

I'm back at home this weekend, and so we thought we'd have another bakeoff! It's the same rules as before, except we only used single quantities for the dough and so made pretty small loaves.

Top left was Mum's, bottom left was mine and right was Andrew's. This time around, Andrew won, but again, only just. He was helped rather a lot by his decision to form it into a plait, which made a surprising amount of difference to the texture. It was pretty too...

Pauper's longbrioche

My sister baked what she called millionaire's shortbread over the Christmas break, and it was absolutely fantastic. It looked a lot like millionaire's shortbread and I'm not sure what it actually was, but it wasn't actually millionaire's shortbread. For a start, the base is really a chocolate-light brownie rather than shortbread (which is probably why I liked it so much) and the caramel layer was a bit more like a fudge than a caramel. Nonetheless, it was very, very nice, and I thought I'd try baking it myself. The recipe is this one, with the hazelnuts left out.

Chocolate Caramel Bars
Ingredients
For the base

• 200g Butter
• 50g Cocoa powder
• 300g Caster sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 225g Plain flour
  

For the topping

• 125g Butter
• 1 tin (397g) Condensed milk
• 2tbsp Golden syrup
• 75g Caster sugar
• 200g Dark chocolate
• 1tbsp Olive oil

Method

1. Melt the butter for the base and stir in the cocoa powder and sugar for the base.
2. Beat the eggs and stir in.
3. Fold in the flour.
4. Spread into a lined tin and bake at 160C/Gas Mark 3 for ~20 mins until the top is firm.
5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
6. Melt the butter for the topping and stir in the condensed milk, golden syrup and sugar for the topping.
7. Cook on a low-medium heat, stirring continuously, for 12-15mins until dark caramel in colour.
8. Pour over the base and allow to cool.
9. Melt the chocolate and stir in the oil.
10. Pour over the caramel and allow to set.

I think I should have used a bigger tin! In hindsight, my roasting tray is almost exactly the 20cmx30cm suggested in the original recipe. Oops. Here's the base batter before baking. It's rather difficult to see in the photo, but it's really quite thick - almost a paste really.After baking, it looks just like a normal brownie though.I'm not sure how much I was supposed to cook the caramel layer - I hope this is dark enough and that it sets!Anything looks pretty if you cover it with chocolate and smooth it down!