Gnocchi with Mushroom Ragu

Happy New Year!

I swear that 2013 flew by- I'm not entirely sure what happened but I think it was 2012 and then I blinked and it was 2014.  So much has happened this year - particularly in this little blog space.  This is my 210th post.  That's ridiculous considering that I started this thing in February, I'm pretty proud of myself for posting fairly consistently.  I've been able to make some baked goods that I've been wanting to try for years like croissants, doughnuts and macarons. I have loved almost every second of it. Not everything has been delicious and there have been a few disasters... like when I made a Carmel Nut Tart and dropped the crust on the floor and burned my arm and the caramel in the span of 1 minute... or when I made marshmallows eggs and thought silver leaf was silver leaf gelatin.  Good times.  Surprisingly, only one of those posts made it into the top 3 most viewed posts of the year.

#1 by a landslide is Vanilla Macarons - This post has had nearly 1,200 page views which blows my mind!  Macarons are very trendy right now and I'm pretty sure that people are searching for the Bouchon Bakery Vanilla Macaron recipe and click my link in the Google search only to be frustrated that I don't post recipes from the Bouchon Bakery cookbook.  Sorry folks, I enjoy my freedom.

#2 is Oreo Biscotti with almost 600 page views - I'm always shocked with how much people like Oreo Cookies and anything that you put Oreo Cookies in.  This is a pretty great recipe so I don't blame them.

#3 only a handful of page views behind #2 is Crock Pot Turkey Breast - WEIRD! People must really like crock pot recipes.  That or they have every intention of making a crock pot recipe because they are lured in by the convenience and hands off approach but they never actually make it because it gets lost in their Pinterest account hidden by all the Oreo Cookie recipes.

Enough about the past, I now present to you a new recipe for your enjoyment...

I love Gnocchi - I definitely prefer it to regular pasta.  When it's made well it's lighter and fluffier than pasta with all the same benefits of being a vehicle for sauce and cheese.  I found this recipe on the Food & Wine website one Saturday when I was really craving some warm comfort food.  Gnocchi hits the spot every time.

The gnocchi here are very traditional - potatoes combined with eggs, cheese and flour to create a soft dough.  I cheated a little bit and microwaved the potatoes instead of baking them which ended up OK, but I think the texture would have been a bit fluffier if I'd actually followed the directions and baked the potatoes in the oven.  Unfortunately, I didn't have time for that business because I was hungry and adding another hour to prep time wasn't happening.

The dough gets turned out onto a floured surface and kneaded for a few minutes before rolling it into a big long snake.  That gets cut into pieces and pressed with a fork to make little indention on each piece.

The gnocchi get boiled for just a few minutes until they float to the surface of the water.

There is a restaurant in DC called Filomena which my family has been going to for decades and there are these sweet little ladies who stand and make fresh pasta and gnocchi in the window all day.  I admire their stamina because I was tired from making just a few servings of gnocchi.

Oddly enough this restaurant is obsessed with holidays and they decorate for Halloween like nobody's business.  It's really quite horrifying to eat your light, fluffy, delicious gnocchi while being stared at by a clown holding a butcher knife but it's totally worth if because the food is amazing.  I hear they also decorate for Christmas which I'm hopeful is less frightening.  My gnocchi were not nearly as fluffy or perfect as those found in the restaurant but they still quite good - although I wouldn't say they were worth being stared at by a giant spider with evil yellow eyes for two hours.

My favorite part of this dish was the sauce.  I hated mushrooms until a couple of years ago when I ate them until I forced myself to like them and it's dishes like this that make me so glad I did.  The sauce was meaty and hearty and full of flavor but it did not overpower the delicate flavors of the gnocchi.  This sauce is a great way to eat a vegetarian dish where it's so hearty you don't miss the meat at all.  I definitely plan to make the sauce again, even if I don't have time to make fresh gnocchi - it would be great over pasta or rice or a grilled chicken breast.  I really enjoyed it!

CA really liked this dish too - he wasn't entirely excited about having gnocchi for dinner as he wasn't "feelin' it" but he totally recanted his statement when he tried it.

Gnocchi with Mushroom Ragu
Recipe courtesy of Food & Wine
8 Servings

Ingredients

For the Gnocchi 
4 Baking Potatoes
2 T Butter, melted
1 Egg, lightly beaten
1 Egg Yolk, lightly beaten
1 1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper
Pinch of Nutmeg
1/2 cup grated Parmesan Cheese
1 1/4 cups All Purpose Flour

For the Ragu
2 T Butter
1/2 cup Olive Oil
1 1/2 lb mixed Mushrooms (quartered if large) 
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper
2 Shallots, minced
2 cloves Garlic, minced
1 tsp Thyme
1/2 cup Dry White Wine
1/4 cup Chicken Stock

Instructions


To Make the Gnocchi
Preheat the oven to 375°.  Bake the potatoes for 1 hour, until tender; let cool slightly. Peel the potatoes and pass them through a ricer into a bowl or mash with a potato masher or fork. Stir in the butter, egg, egg yolk, salt, pepper, nutmeg and 1/2 cup of cheese and let cool.

Lightly dust a baking sheet with flour. Sprinkle the 1 1/4 cups of flour over the potato mixture and gently knead until the flour is almost incorporated. Scrape the dough onto a floured work surface and gently knead until smooth. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces. Roll out 1 piece of the dough into a 3/4-inch-thick rope. Cut the rope into 1-inch pieces and transfer the gnocchi to the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough. Roll each gnocchi against the tines of a fork to make ridges. Cover the gnocchi with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 20 minutes.

To make the Mushroom Ragu
In a large skillet, melt  the butter and the oil. Add the mushrooms and season with salt and pepper. Cook over moderately high heat, stirring, until tender and just browned, about 7 minutes. Add the shallots, garlic and thyme and cook until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Stir in the wine and cook until nearly evaporated, about 2 minutes. Add the chicken stock and season the ragu with salt and pepper; keep warm over low heat.

To cook the Gnocchi & Serve
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add half the gnocchi and simmer over moderately high heat until they rise to the surface, then simmer until cooked through, about 2 minutes longer. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the gnocchi to a serving bowl. Cook the remaining gnocchi. Spoon the ragu over the gnocchi and serve, passing grated cheese at the table.

Enjoy!

Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 71: Sourdough Bread

I have a feeling I'm going to get sick of making bread very soon.  I did an inventory of what I have left to make out of the Bouchon Bakery cookbook and I have just a couple of items from each chapter left... except for the bread chapter where there are at least a half a dozen recipes left.  Sheesh.

I love sourdough bread and making it is not that different from making many of the other breads in this cookbook.

The big difference is that you use a lot more levain than in the other recipes.  Levain is basically a bread starter made from water and flour that is left to sit out for days and is fed with more flour so that it grows - basically it's bacteria.  Somehow it doesn't kill you but the more of it you put in bread the more it tastes sour.  I don't know how.  It's science.

The bread comes together really easy in the stand mixer and using the dough hook to knead it takes all the hard work out of it.  It's left to rise for a few hours, shaped into a round loaf and then rises again.  At that point I transferred it to a flexible cutting board to help me get it into the hot oven but for some reason the sides of it were all saggy like a saggy... something or other. 

The bread baked up beautifully (at least it looks like it did from the top) and the crust was was best one so far - very crusty which I'm aware is not very descriptive but it's the only word I can think of.

Looking at the loaf of bread from the side it looks more like a flying saucer than a loaf of bread which I can only imagine is due to the saggy sides getting some kind of a surgical lift in the oven.

The bread was pretty good but I wanted it to be more sour.  I like to know I'm eating sourdough bread and this one just made me think that I might be eating sourdough bread.  That didn't stop me from eating it and it definitely didn't' stop me from using it to make french toast the following morning.

Enjoy!
Julie

Guacamole

I am very picky about my guacamole.  In fact, I refused to eat guacamole until I went to a Mexican restaurant that made it tableside.  I'm very skeptical about the stuff you buy in the grocery store because I'm not sure why it's still green.  Anytime I've ever seen an avocado that touched the air for more than 10 minutes it was brown.  What the heck do they put in there to keep it green?  Wait, don't tell me.

To me guacamole must be made no less than 15 minutes before I eat it.  The avocado must be chunky, not totally mushed up into baby food consistency.  It must have a few tomatoes in it, but not too many.  It must have some spice to it.  Let's just make it easy and say that it must be this guacamole - I'm rather skeptical of all others... except that for some strange reason I do like Wholly Guacamole which comes in those little pouches.  I can somehow convince myself that the pouch keeps away the brown and not 9,000 chemicals and green food coloring.

CA will eat any guacamole, anywhere, anytime.  He's not picky.  That man loves his Mexican food.

The recipe is really quite simple, as it should be.  I use a mortar and pestle to grind up the onions, salt, cilantro and jalapeno in this recipe because we don't have a molcajete (Google it).  I've been tempted to get one even though I'm generally against single use kitchen supplies.  I'm sure someday I'll have a theme party and convince myself that it's necessary but until then we make do with the mortar and pestle.

Once you've ground up the base, in go chunks of avocado, a few tomatoes and more onions, cilantro, jalapeno and salt.

I'm always surprised by how much salt you need to put in guacamole to make it taste right, especially considering that the vehicle to get it into your mouth is a salty chip.

I really do love this stuff and it changed my life when I finally found a guacamole I liked (that's quite dramatic, it just changed my guacamole eating experiences).  Avocados are so good for you!  Although, I'm sure in the quantities I consume them and with the number of chips that accompany it, it takes away some of the health benefits.  No matter.

Guacamole
Recipe courtesy of Saveur

Ingredients
2 T finely chopped White Onion
1 Jalapeno, seeded and minced
3 T finely chopped Cilantro
Salt
3 Avocados
1 small Tomato, diced

Instructions
Grind half the onions, half the jalapeño, and half the cilantro and 1/2 tsp of salt in a mortar (if you don't have a mortar you can mash it well with a fork). Transfer to a serving bowl.

Cut the avocados in half lengthwise, then remove and discard pit. Make crosshatch incisions in avocado pulp with a paring knife. Scoop pulp out with a spoon, then add to the onion mixture.

Stir in remaining onions, jalapeño, and cilantro, then gently mix in tomatoes. Adjust seasoning with salt and serve immediately.

Enjoy!
Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 70: Dog Treats

My little Sconnie boy has been waiting for this day for almost a year.  He FINALLY gets to be the recipient of some Bouchon Bakery treats.

For a dog who never gets fed from the table or the counter (except when my dad is around when I know he sneaks food to the granddog), he has a very keen sense of knowing when I'm cooking something that he would like or something that will kill him.  The dog never fails to appear when meat is brought into the house, out of the fridge or freezer or onto the stove, oven or grill.  He also appears 100% of the time when I am making something with chocolate.  While his little nose is going a mile a minute he is still very polite and has never once stolen food and he's actually quite terrible about cleaning up what I drop on the floor.  He usually looks at it and then looks up at me like I'm trying to trick him.  He's a good boy.  I've jinxed myself, haven't I?

The second these chicken livers entered the front door, Sconnie was aware.  I set the bag on the floor while unloading the rest of the groceries and returned to the kitchen to find his entire face inside the bag with snout nose twitching fiercely.  He knew they were for him because there was no way I'd eat anything that smelled that bad.

The meaty base of these dog treats is bacon and chicken livers.  Cooking the bacon made my house smell delightful and made CA come running to the kitchen to find out what kind deliciousness I was preparing.  Sorry, not for you.  Then I cooked the chicken livers which made my house smell like something had died and made me want to gag.  Grinding up the bacon and chicken livers together into a paste didn't help.

I recovered enough to add in flour, cornmeal and chicken broth to make a very brown, very smelly, very dog-friendly dough.  Luckily, I already had a dog bone cookie cutter lying around which I used to make the epitome of dog treat shapes.

The treats went into the oven to bake at a very low temperature for a very long time... it takes 3 hours to dry these suckers out!

I'm usually a big fan of ketchup, but there's something about brushing a ketchup glaze on chicken liver dog treats that almost made me toss my cookies.  It was a nasty smelling combination.

The verdict?  Well, someone waited very patiently for his treats....

At first he was a little skeptical... I think it was the ketchup glaze.

But after a little coaxing, he gobbled up the first one and asked for seconds.  Then he asked for thirds.  Then he asked for fourths which I did not give him so he proceeded to check the carpet for crumbs.

Sconnie is just like his mama and chose to share some of his treats with his friends.  Apparently bull dogs and lab mixes aren't as skeptical of ketchup glaze as catahoulas are and they gobbled them right up and asked for more.

Enjoy!
Julie

Sausage, Mushroom & Radicchio Stuffed Shells

I never order stuffed shells in restaurants.  There's too much cheese... and I love cheese.  Is it really necessary to fill the shell with cheese and top it with even more cheese?  Plus, then they come around with that cheese grater and ask you if you want another layer of cheese.  The worst part is that if you don't eat the dish fast enough the cheese on top starts to coagulate and become a solid mass that you can lift off your plate in one big chunk...  I'm making myself nauseous. 

These shells are not like that - they're stuffed with a much greater variety of things than four kinds of cheese.  Yes, they have four kinds of cheese in them.  I love cheese.  But they will not make you nauseous or leave your running for the prune juice.  TMI?

Let's start with the leeks.  Leeks are delicious, it's like a really mild onion, but cleaning them is kind of a bear.  You start by hacking off the top half.  The dark green parts are really tough and don't taste great so just throw them away.  You could probably use them to make stock but I typically just chuck them.  I then like to cut them in half and wash them.  A ton of dirt gets in between the layers of the leek so you have to wash them really well or you'll get a crunchy surprise.  Alternatively you can slice them into circles, stick them in a bowl of water and swirl them around for a minute or so.  The dirt will sink and the leek will rise to the top.  Once halved, these leeks get sliced into half-moons.

Along with the leeks, these shells are stuffed with Italian sausage (I used turkey sausage to stay a bit more on the healthy side - with all the other stuff in here you'll never notice the difference), mushrooms and radicchio.  The sausage and mushrooms lend a heartiness to the dish.  The radicchio puts a bit of a bitter edge on the stuffing which I think breaks up the heaviness. 

Once the sausage and veggies are all cooked down, some ricotta cheese, cottage cheese, mozzarella and parmesan are added in to add a creamy element and all that gets stuffed inside of a cooked pasta shell.  You can certainly use all ricotta or cottage cheese instead of both - but I happened to have just a little bit of each on hand.

Top it all off with some marinara sauce (I went the jarred route this time) and a bit more cheese - pop it in the oven and you're good to go.

I was really impressed with how this recipe came out.   I love how the bitter radicchio pairs with the hearty sausage and mushrooms and creamy cheese.  It nods at the traditional stuffed shells but the flavors are far more complex.  My favorite part is that it is super filling without being so heavy that you've got to put your stretchy pants on. 

Sausage, Mushroom & Radicchio Stuffed Shells
4 servings

Ingredients
3/4 lb Italian Sausage (turkey or pork both work great)
2 Leeks, halved and thinly sliced
4 oz. Mushrooms, chopped
1 small head Raddichio (8 oz.), chopped
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
1 T Sugar
1 Egg
1/4 cup Ricotta Cheese (or use 1/2 cup and omit cottage cheese)
1/4 cup Cottage Cheese (or use 1/2 cup and omit ricotta cheese)
1 cup Mozzarella Cheese, shredded and divided
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese, shredded and divided
25 Large Pasta Shells
1 cup Marinara Sauce

Instructions
In a large non-stick skillet over medium heat, brown the sausage until no pink remains.  Add the leaks, mushrooms and radicchio, season with salt and pepper and cook until soft, about 10 minutes.  Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar, egg, ricotta, cottage cheese, half the mozzarella and half the Parmesan cheese.

In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook the pasta one minute less than the package indicates.  Drain and cool under running water. Pat the shells dry. 

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Spray a baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.

Stuff each shell with approximately 1 T of filling and arrange in the prepared baking dish.  Top with sauce and the remaining cheese.

Bake for 45 minutes until bubbly and the cheese is lightly browned.

Enjoy!
Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 69: Palet d' Or

I've been going back in forth in my mind as to whether this is my favorite Baking Bouchon recipe so far or not.  As far as the cakes go, this is definitely my favorite.  The only other recipe that is giving me pause is Paris-New York but those were peanut butter cream filled round of pastry and this is some serious chocolate business.  Let's call it a tie - but if you're looking at a dessert that tricks everyone into believe that you went to culinary school, this is it.  Did I mention it has chocolate in it?

Palet d'or, when translated from French, means Golden Puck, which, given the way I prepared this dessert makes very little sense.  Essentially we're talking about Devils Food Cake layered with Chocolate Mousse and covered in Chocolate Ganache.  I told you there was chocolate.  It's all assembled into a round shaped cake, hence the "puck" and it supposed to be decorated with gold leaf, hence the "golden".  Mine was definitely round and puckish, but it was not gold.  Remember when I bought silver leaf thinking it was silver leaf gelatin?  Well, I FINALLY got to use it in a way that was less embarrassing.  I decorated my cake in silver rather than gold.  Gold is so 2012.   Let's call this Palet d'argent. You can thank Google Translate for that.

First stop - Devil's Food Cake.  The chocolate in this component comes from cocoa powder.  It's pretty standard cake stuff until you stop in your tracks because it has mayonnaise in it.  Gross.  I hate mayonnaise.  I was raised on Miracle Whip which is far less disgusting.  CA disagrees with me but he is wrong.  Regardless, I will not let a mere 1/4 cup of mayonnaise deter me from something with twice as much sugar in it.  The cake is caked in a thin layer on a sheet pan and cut into 2 circles.  Thomas Keller advised that "the trimmings make great snacks" which I read to mean "eat all the trimmings."  Thanks TK, I wholeheartedly agree.

The 2nd chocolately component of this cake is chocolate cream but I like to call it chocolate mouse because that's what it is.  Eggs and sugar are cooked on the stove until thick, melted chocolate is folded into a bit of heavy cream, the cooked eggs are added to the chocolate mixture and then every more whipped heavy cream is added.  The results is a fluffy, chocolately cloud of deliciousness.

Before we prep the 3rd part of the chocolate happiness trifecta each of the devils food cake circles get coated which melted chocolate on one side.  This seems like a small detail but when this cake is served the crunch of the thin chocolate layer is a huge component to how the cake slices and feels when you bite into it.  It's not to be skipped.  The base layer of this cake is one of two circles of devil's food cake.  Next comes half of the chocolate mouse, then another layer of cake and the other half of the chocolate mouse.  All of that gets frozen while the final chocolate miracle is made.  (If you haven't noticed by now I kind of like all the chocolate.)

The final layer is the chocolate glaze which is like a thick ganache.  I wish I could describe to you what CA says every time someone says the word ganache.  He always repeats it 3 times in a very high pitched, girly voice.  I have no idea why.  Marriage must always contain some level of mystery.

The glaze is made from cream, sugar and water which is boiled.  To that you add cocoa powder and cook it for a bit longer.  Once it reduces a bit you remove it from the heat and add gelatin.  The result is a completely silky chocolate glaze that, once cooled thickens enough to hold up to slicing but actually never hardens.

If I weren't as ladylike as I am, I would have simply eaten this straight out of the pot.  Plus I would have eaten all the leftovers with a spoon out of the refrigerator.  Wait... I totally did that.

The final assembly drizzles the chocolate glaze all over the assembled cake.  I can't describe to you how shiny the glaze it when it coats that cake.  It's the stuff of fairy tails... too bad they only write fairy tails about sleeping princesses who have to scrub floors and grow their hair really long.  They should totally write fairy tails about women who make perfect desserts.

If you haven't been able to tell yet, I'm a huge fan of this dessert.  It's incredibly chocolate and super rich but it's not overly sweet which makes it incredibly palatable.  It's like the difference between milk chocolate and dark chocolate.

CA commented that this is a "restaurant dessert" meaning that he would expect this if he ordered a dessert at a restaurant which I rarely do because I'm too often disappointed (that or I stuff myself with appetizers and entrees and can't possibly eat dessert without obtaining some kind of a tape worm).

Minus the less than stellar job I did at accessorizing this cake with silver leaf, it's ridiculously pretty.  The glaze is super shiny (and stayed that way for days).  I hesitated to give any of this away but eventually relented when I realized that I would eat every single slice of it if it remained in my house.  Pretty & delicious gives this a top rating so far in this cookbook. 

Enjoy!
Julie

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 68: Craquelins

It's been over a month since I posted a recipe from the Bouchon Bakery Cookbook.  Yikes!  I guess I needed a break after the aggressive number of croissants I baked.

Craquelins are in the brioche and doughnuts section of the cookbook and fit the bill for a breakfast type bread.

I finally had to go out and buy oranges which I did not have for the Cranberry Orange Bread or Cranberry Orange Scones but I still got to use up more orange liquor.

The orange flavor is imparted in this baked good in 3 ways - orange liqueur, orange zest and candied orange peel are all added to the dough.
The preparation includes a recipe for homemade candied orange peel & pith which is, frankly, a pain in the rear to make.  The ingredients are simple enough... orange, sugar and corn syrup, but the process takes forever.

First you have to hollow out the oranges, getting rid of the actual orange part and leaving just the peel.  This is harder than it sounds and Thomas Keller's recommendation to reserve the oranges for another use is ridiculous.  Getting them out of the peels completely destroys the oranges rendering them useless for any other purpose.

The peels are then boiled in water to tenderize them.  They are then cut into strips and cooked again in a mixture of sugar and corn syrup to candy them.  All of that is not completely terrible, but then you have to take each and every little strip and remove the pith from the peel.  Seriously?  Why couldn't I just peel the orange to begin with leave the pith where it was.  It would have saved me from mangling a perfectly good orange and from spending 30 minutes depithing candied orange peel.

By the way, candied orange peel does not taste like candy.  It tastes like slightly less bitter orange peel... approximately as bitter as I was when I finished making this freakin' orange peel.

After that torture, putting together the brioche dough is a cinch.  You make a little starter with milk, flour and yeast that sits around for an hour to help get the yeast moving.  That all gets added to more flour, sugar, salt and a bunch of eggs.  Then a ton of butter gets incorporated.  Into the finished dough you knead the candied orange peel, orange zest and orange liquor.  All that rises rises a bit, gets folded up and stuck in the refrigerator overnight.

One of the more interesting parts of this pastry is that when you form it into individual pieces, you stick a sugar cube inside of each dough ball.  That all gets brushed with egg wash and rises again before baking.  Right before sticking it in the oven, it gets a topping of pearl sugar.

Thank goodness for the sugar cube in the center and the sugar on top because this dough is definitely not sweet.  The orange doesn't add any sweetness at all, in fact, it's downright bitter so without the added sugar I would have hated this thing.

This thing does have one thing going for it... it IS pretty.

CA said he liked it and insisted I retain a couple of them for him to enjoy over the next few days of which he ate exactly zero.  That is a sign that he was being nice and trying to compensate for my grumpiness over spending hours making candied orange peel only to not love the finished result.  I know all his sweet tricks.

Enjoy!
Julie

Salted Caramel Millionaire's Shortbread

Shortbread?  Yes, please.
Dulce de leche Caramel?  Yes, please
Chocolate?  Obviously.

These little bars have about everything you could ask for and man are they rich!

CA brought home the holiday cookie section of the Washington Post that he stole from his office.  I was skeptical when he handed me the paper because he's always bringing home articles for me to read and usually they're about controversial political topics.  I appreciate that he wants to know my opinion on stuff but sometimes I just don't care.  When I get home from work I'd rather sit on my coach and watch a recorded episode of General Hospital than having a rousing discussion about the latest aspects of Health Care Reform. However, when I realized the article was about cookies, I perked right up. 

I decided to choose one recipe from the article and this one instantly struck my fancy.  I'm a huge fan of all things caramel and I'm partial to cookies and bars so this was right up my alley.
































The base of these cookies is a traditional shortbread that is pressed into the pan and baked all the way through.

The second layer is dulce de leche that is cooked down with butter, sugar, corn syrup and salt to make a very intense caramel.  (Again, I couldn't find dulce de leche in the store so I made it myself using this method which is still very dangerous and I still didn't kill myself.)

The third layer is chocolate - a mix of semisweet and white chocolate.

You let all that set up for a while and then slice it into squares... small squares... trust me, this stuff is really rich!

The base is nice and crumbly, the caramel is gooey and barely salty and the chocolate is crunchy and decadent.  These are really good!  They definitely feel like a holiday dessert because they remind me a lot of fudge.  They're so dense and chocolatey but the caramel just put them over the top!  You should make these.  Right now.

Salted Caramel Millionaire's Shortbread
Recipe adapted from the Washington Post

Ingredients

For the shortbread
1 cup Unsalted Butter (2 sticks), cold and cut into small cubes
1/2 cup Sugar
1 1/2 cups + 2 T All Purpose Flour
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

For the Topping

7 T Unsalted Butter
1/3 cup Sugar
1 T Corn Syrup
1 cup + 2 T Dulce de Leche (13.4 oz. can)
1/4 + 1/8 tsp Salt
7 oz Semisweet Chocolate Chips
3 oz. White Chocolate Chips

Instructions

For the Shortbread
Grease a 9-inch square baking pan with cooking oil spray, then line with parchment paper so the paper hangs over two sides (for easy lifting).

Combine the butter, sugar, flour and vanilla extract in a food processor. Pulse to form a dough that holds together. Transfer to the pan and press the dough into the bottom. Use a fork to prick the dough. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to overnight.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Bake the shortbread dough, straight from the refrigerator, for 40 to 45 minutes; it should just be starting to brown. Cool in the pan.

For the Topping
Combine the butter, sugar, syrup, dulce de leche and salt in a small nonstick saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the mixture is melted and blended. Reduce the heat to low; cook for 8 or 9 minutes, stirring often, to form a caramel; when it’s ready, it will be darkened in color with a thinner, pourable consistency.

Pour the caramel directly over the center of the shortbread base; it will spread by itself. You don’t want to work it into the corners. Leave it undisturbed for at least 1 hour to set.

Place the chocolate chips in a microwave proof bowl.  Microwave in 30 second increments, stirring in between, until the chocolate is melted.  Pour the chocolate over the set caramel. Use a toothpick to create swirl patterns in the chocolate.

Repeat the melting and swirling with the white chocolate.

Cool until the chocolate is set. Use the parchment paper to lift and transfer the shortbread to a cutting board. A serrated knife works best for cutting into small squares.

Enjoy!
Julie