A luscious caramel shortbread

- they're great for a date

Ingredients

125 g Besan flour

250 g Butter (chopped & cold)

75 g Dates (chopped)

200 g Maize starch

2 tsp Golden syrup (approx. 15 g)

100 g Brown sugar

1 tsp Water

Extra maize starch

Method

Thermomix

Put besan flour and maize starch into the TM bowl.

Mix for 7 secs on speed 7.

Remove from TM bowl and set aside in another container.

Put the butter, golden syrup, brown sugar & water into the TM bowl.

Mix for 1 min at speed 4.

Ensure all ingredients are incorporated.

Add flour mix and chopped dates to TM bowl.

Mix for 15 sec on speed 2. 

After the 15 sec the mix should just come together as a dough. Do not mix for longer in the Thermomix.

Take dough out of TM bowl and put it into the container you used for the besan flour & maize starch.

Stand Mixer 

Sift & mix together the besan flour & maize starch.

Cream together the butter, golden syrup, brown sugar & water.

Add to the creamed mixture the flour mix and the chopped dates.

On a low speed mix together all ingredients until the dough just comes together.

Rolling out the dough

Put the dough on a sheet of baking paper. Bring it together with your hands. If you need to, kneed the dough to incorporate any remaining flour. If the dough is sticky add a little of the extra maize starch to it. Kneed the dough to incorporate the extra maize starch. The dough should be ready to roll out.

Place dough between two sheets of baking paper. To ensure the shortbread is even in thickness follow this tip. Find four placements (dinner setting) place two of them on top of each other on either side of the dough (Two of my placemats are 8 mm high). The placemats can be on top of or underneath the pieces of baking paper. I find it easier to work with the dough when it is between two sheets of baking paper. When rolling out the dough ensure the rolling pin is wide enough to span the dough and part of the two top placemats. My rolling pin is large – 61 cm from handle to handle. Initially when rolling the pin may not necessarily rest on the placemats, however, when the dough is the same thickness as the placemats it will. At this stage the dough should be all the same thickness. Put the dough (still in between the baking paper) onto a flat tray and put it into the fridge for approximately 30 mins.

Cutting & Cooking

Turn the oven on to 140o C.

Line 2 trays with baking paper.

Bring out the cold dough. Gently lift off the top piece of baking paper, put it back down on the dough. Holding on to both sheets of baking paper on both sides of the dough gently flip the dough over. Lift off the top piece of baking paper - do not discard. 

Using a cutter of your choice cut out the shortbread and place them on a baking tray. For the date & caramel shortbread pictured above I used a round cutter with a 48 mm diameter (~ 1 7/8 of an inch). When you have cut out as many shapes as possible bring the dough together and roll it out again between the two sheets of baking paper. Continue cutting out shapes in the newly rolled dough. If the dough is cold enough the shapes will still be easy to pick up & transfer to the baking tray. If not put the dough back into the fridge for ~ 5 mins. Repeat until you can't cut out any more shapes.

The length of time required to bake the shortbread will depend on the size of the cutter you have used & your oven. The cutter I used (48 mm diameter) produced 37 shortbread that were ~ 19 - 20 g each. I baked these for 30 mins turning the trays at 15 mins as my oven has a hot spot.

******DO NOT EAT THE RAW DOUGH******

the besan flour makes it taste awful