March Cookie of the Month:

Irish Caramel Fingers

March is my birthday month! As a child, I looked forward all year to March, not only because of the fun surprises and plans with family and friends that come along with birthdays, but also because my Mother would make these delicious bar cookies that were my favorite. The crispy shortbread with a thick, golden layer of caramel topped with chocolate was the pathway to my heart. I hope you will enjoy making and eating them too!

Recipe Notes:

These cookies might seem like a lot of work but they actually come together quickly with the end result being a layered cookie where each of the layers compliment each other. I promise they are worth it.

I think this recipe might be the only recipe I use Margarine for nowadays. For some reason, unknown to me, Margarine makes the caramel taste better and have a better texture than Butter for these cookies. Real butter is still best for the shortbread crust though.

Shortbread Crust:

3/4 cups All Purpose Flour

4.5 Tablespoons Butter(Just over half of a stick) At room temperature.

1 TBSP Sugar

Caramel:

1 can Evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed milk)

3/4 cup Granulated Sugar

4 TBSP White Corn Syrup

2 Cubes Margarine

Chocolate for Chocolate layer. (I use half of a Giant size Hersheys Milk Chocolate Bar. You can substitute for Chocolate chips if desired.)

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Using a pastry cutter cut the butter into the flour and sugar until the mixture forms crumbs.
   
2. Press crumbs into an 8×8 inch baking dish.
   
3. Bake the crust at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until the crust begins to look golden.
   
   

To Make the Caramel:

1. Add all of the caramel ingredients to a medium to large sized heavy saucepan. The caramel doubles in size as it’s cooking down so plan to use a larger size to avoid it bubbling over. Heat the caramel over medium high heat to a rolling boil while stirring constantly and scraping the bottom and sides of the pan.
   
2. Melt the Hersheys chocolate in the microwave at 60 percent power or you can simply lay the chocolate pieces across the top of the warm caramel and allow the heat of the caramel to melt the chocolate and then spread it when it has melted.
   
3. Continue stirring and scraping as caramel begins to reduce. This process usually takes about 10 minutes for me.(Altitude here is 5800 feet.) Begin to check caramel for soft ball texture and temperature. I don’t usually use a candy thermometer for this but I check it by putting a spoonful of the caramel on a small cold plate and watching to see if it sets up. The texture I’m looking for is a bit thicker than Corn Syrup.
4. Once the caramel reaches a thickness just a bit thicker than corn syrup, remove from heat and pour the caramel immediately over the shortbread crust, spreading it to the edges as needed.
   
5. Allow the caramel to cool slightly as you break apart 1/2 of the giant size bar of Hersheys chocolate into rectangles.
   
6. Cool Caramel bars in a refrigerator for 2 hours before cutting into bars. Serve chilled.
   

This is the Caramel just before I removed it from heat and poured it over the shortbread. It doesn’t get the dark caramel color that some Caramel recipes do, more of a golden color.