Millionaire's Shortbread

I wanted to make an edible gift for a family friend of my boyfriend's and decided on millionaire's shortbread, as it's easier to give as a gift than a whole cake, and I wasn't sure how much the make recipient would like cupcakes. So I was thinking about some sort of biscuit or tray bake and remembered it had been a while since I had made millionaire's shortbread - and handily for this month's Alphabakes challenge, it also begins with the letter M!

I found a generic recipe on the internet, so essentially it went like this:

Mix 250g plain flour, 75g caster sugar and 175g softened butter in a bowl to make breadcrumbs.
Press down into a lined square cake tin and cook in the oven at about 190 degrees for 10 minutes or so until it turns golden brown.

For the caramel, I heated a small tin of light condensed milk, 55g butter and 55g brown sugar until just boiling, then removed from the heat and allowed to thicken. When the base was cooked and cooled, I poured over the caramel, and put that in the fridge to set.

I then melted 200g of dark chocolate and poured that over the top, and put it back in the fridge to set.

The shortbread was a bit crumbly and the chocolate was quite thick, so some pieces broke a little when I tried to cut it into squares, but my boyfriend was more than happy to eat the offcuts!

I rooted around in the cupboard until I found a pretty box to pacakage it up in. It looks quite homemade but I think that is one of the nice things about it!

I am entering my millionaire's shortbread into this month's Alphabakes - just a few hours ahead of the deadline! Speaking of which, I can't wait to see which random letter Baking Addict comes up with for April - based on the bakes I am already planning, I'm hoping it's C, S or P.... but it truly is random!