At the moment, I am not getting much opportunity to bake. I miss it. I need a school fundraiser or something!!

Once a week, I bake something sweet for the children to have in their packed lunches or as a yummy treat when they come in from school.  I always want to have something in the house that I can offer to anyone who pops in. To have a tin with something in is what makes a kitchen homely I think.

Normally I love experimenting with dairy free baking, but as I’m on the SSS 90 Day Plan at the moment (you can read about what I am up to here and here) I am going all out on baking with butter, cream and milk, so I can’t be tempted. This one is full of it!

I LOVE caramel and I am of the opinion that Millionnaire’s Shortbread is just one of the best slices ever. This recipe adds some extra goodness with oats and coconut getting in the mix.  My theory is that although the slice is still full of all the naughty stuff like gooey caramel and chocolate on top, it has the added bonus of oats and coconut to give it more substance. A little portion will go longer than your average slice.

I got the ingredients from Jo Seagar’s recipe for ‘Caramel Oat Slice’ in The Great New Zealand Baking Book, but the method is a little different to make it more Millionnaire’s Shortbread like.

Recipe

Base

2 cups of plain flour

1 cup of self-raising flour

1 cup of desiccated coconut

2 cups of brown sugar

3 cups of rolled oats

2 eggs

300g of melted butter

Caramel middle

200g of butter

400g of condensed milk (sweetened)

4 tbsp of golden syrup

1 tsp of vanilla essence (although it strikes me you could experiment with other flavours)

Chocolate top

390g milk chocolate (this makes a pretty thick layer so you could do less)

Recipe

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line a large 25cm by 35cm slice tin. Make sure the baking paper comes well over the top of the edge of the tin to help get the slice out.

Combine all the dry ingredients for the base, give them a really good stir. Add the two eggs and melted butter.  Work it through until there is no more dry mix left.  Press this firmly into the base of the tin and put it in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Until the top is going a lovely golden brown.

10 minutes into the base cooking, melt all the caramel ingredients together.  Bring to the boil and then simmer for 5-10 minutes, until the mixture has thickened slightly. Whilst it’s simmering, stir continually.  If you leave it for even a few seconds it will burn and then you have little brown bits floating round the caramel, not a good look.  Get a magazine or your phone ready, so you don’t get bored standing there.

After 10 minutes of the caramel simmering, the base should be ready to come out of the oven.  Put it on a cooling rack and then pour the caramel over the top, making sure it gets all the way to the edges and there is an even coverage. Leave to cool completely, until the caramel is set.

When it’s cold, melt the chocolate in a bowl sat over a pan of simmering water. Once it’s melted, pour it over the caramel. Again, make sure it goes right to the edges and you get an even coverage. Let this cool and set.

Once the chocolate is set, you can carefully pull the slice out of the tin and on a flat surface cut it into squares.  I would make them relatively small as each one does pack a full punch of oats, butter and sugar!  Adults can always go back for a second slice.

Making it even punchier: I haven’t tried this so I don’t have measurements to give you, but I just thought this would be even more decadent (although not suitable for packed lunches) if you stirred some smooth peanut butter into the caramel before you poured it onto the slice. Then you could sprinkle crushed salted, roasted peanuts on top of the chocolate after you have poured that on, so the nuts set into the chocolate. Oh my gosh that is so naughty!!