When recipes don't always go to plan, there's always a man around to eat it all up!

The first rule of baking club is to never speak about baking club. The second rule is to never try and bake whilst doing something else. The whole thing about women being able to multi-task goes out of the window when it comes to baking.



The no-so-perfect result, or what was left of it!

I recently learned the importance of rule number two when attempting to make caramel shortcakes after work on a Wednesday evening.

At the same time I was making tea, washing the dishes and there was a plumber in the kitchen assessing our boiler. It doesn’t work. Baking must be done in a private, peaceful and quiet environment and with full concentration.

I got this recipe from the side of a tin of condensed milk which was knocking around in the fridge.

It seemed pretty straight-forward and I had most of the ingredients in the cupboard so I thought I’d give it a go with the intention of taking the finished treats to my friend Cherry’s house the next night.

Basically this needs to be done in three stages and each stage requires focus.

Stage one is making the biscuit, which is easy. It comes out as quite a crumbly texture but it moulds together into a ball once to get your hands in.

Once this is cooked and cooled you can move onto the next stage which is making the caramel.

This is where it went wrong for me as I left the pan on the hob whilst I went to do something else and the caramel burnt.

But I persevered and figured that the whole thing would be so sweet anyway once covered in chocolate that nobody would notice a few burnt bits.

Once the caramel is set on the biscuit base you can melt the chocolate on top.

The key here is to slice the cake into squares before the chocolate fully sets, not fall asleep on the sofa and leave it in the fridge over night like I did.

What I woke up to on Thursday morning was a huge solid slab that was impossible to break without creating a gooey mess. I decided it wasn’t fit to show to anybody else so I left it in the fridge.

But when I came home that night, Paul had eaten half of it, hence why what you see in the photograph are the few reaming chunks, oozing with gooey caramel.

I can see why he couldn’t resist because it was totally delicious and very naughty. It proved that it’s not always about looks; the proof is in the pudding. Literally!

Biscuit ingredients

85g soft, unsalted butter

45g caster sugar

150g plain flour, sifted

Filling ingredients

120g soft, unsalted butter

2 tbsp honey

75g brown sugar

1 small tin condensed milk

 225g milk chocolate for covering

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

For the base, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the flour.

Press together to form a dough and roll onto a lightly floured surface.

Knead for about a minute. Press into a greased, shallow tin and bake for about 25 minutes. Leave to cool.

For the filling, put all the ingredients (except the chocolate) into a pan and bring to a boil.
Keep stirring, turn down the heat and simmer for about three minutes until think.

Pour over the base and cool for several hours in the fridge.

When set, melt the chocolate and pour over the caramel. Leave at room temperature and after about half an hour, slice into squares then chill in the fridge for several hours.