Millionaires’ Shortbread is something that I never realised was a British thing, until I wanted to make some and nobody had any idea what I was talking about! It’s a thick layer of buttery, moist, melt in your mouth shortbread with a layer of caramel on top of it, finished with a thin layer of semisweet chocolate. I love it, and I realised I haven’t made it to show you here so I’ll have to make it again at some point.

This doesn’t have a fancy name like Millionaires’ shortbread, but it is a variation on the theme perfect for this time of year.

Can anyone explain to me why winter is the season of chocolate and peppermint? Don’t get me wrong, I love it. I love it so much I’ll happily eat it all  year round.. So why is it that it only makes a big appearance at this time of year?

Anyways, back to the point, yes, it’s a chocolate and peppermint shortbread. It’s the same as the Millionaires’ shortbread but with a layer of soft peppermint fondant in place of the caramel.

We start with the shortbread. As shortbread goes it’s not very sweet, but that’s fine as we want it to balance with the extreme sweetness that’s coming along soon. Cream the butter and sugar together then mix in the flour. It’s going to seem crumbly for a while but once all that flour is mixed it  squeeze it and you’ll see it come together and form the dough.

Put it into your nicely lined pan (9×13 in this case) and press down firmly, as flat as possible. Bake it until it’s just turning a light golden colour. Let it cool thoroughly.

Next comes the mint. This is actually my peppermint patty recipe just with more liquid added so it’s spreadable but holds it’s shape. It’s powdered sugar, a small amount of shortening, corn syrup, water and peppermint oil. If it’s your first time using peppermint oil be careful, it’s very potent. Mix it in a little at a time and taste. I like super, icy minty but not everyone does.

You’ll see in the photo that it looks like I have two layers of mint.. that would be because I do! I made what I thought would be enough but it gave such a thin layer you could see the shortbread through it. But I had to go and buy more mint oil before I could make more so the first layer became most thoroughly set. I think I may have made the second layer a little looser too.

I put that in the fridge for an hour or so to set up firm so it wouldn’t melt when encountering the chocolate.

I found about 8-10oz of chocolate is perfect for a 9×13″ tin, just enough for a thin layer, dark chocolate is best to complement the sweetness. I just went with semisweet though as not too many people around here share my love of super dark chocolate. You may need to add a touch of vegetable oil to alter the consistency depending on the brand of chocolate you use, I like my chocolate to spread out with a smooth top rather than the ridges from spreading. Your call!

Let the chocolate mostly set and cut into squares. If you let the chocolate completely set you run the risk of it cracking as you cut through. You want it soft enough to cut easily, but set enough that chocolate isn’t going to get everywhere!

I actually cut mine into 2″x3″ bars but the general consensus seems to be that people would like it to be a 2″ square. Some people found it too minty.

I’m keeping my bars stored in the fridge, mostly just because. It stops the chocolate from getting too soft since it’s untempered and it doesn’t seem to be affecting the mint or shortbread adversely.

July is National Ice Cream Month, as appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1984, there was no way we could let the month pass without something.. a whole month of somethings. That’s right, every food-based post for the entire month of July is going to be an ice cream or a sorbet. We figured sorbets were close enough to ice cream that we could get away with them! Is the weather hot where you are, we’ve certainly been needing frozen treats here in Texas, I’m still not acclimatised to the heat.

So, we’re starting the month off with a classic, kind of. Everyone knows mint choc chip ice cream, it’s a vivid green and a very fresh mint, peppermint usually, that icy mint flavour.

We grow mint in our garden, but we grow spearmint, it doesn’t have that icy “burn” it actually has more of a savoury flavour. But we decided it was worth a try. So during the custard making stage we infused the cream with mint, lots of mint. More mint than we could take off of our plant in one go, thankfully we regularly cull our herbs down so we had a jar of dried mint that was still homegrown.

I left it for a good long while, probably 30 minutes or so after having brought the cream up to a simmer and then turned it off. Once infused it got strained and the rest of the custard was made as usual. I was entertained to see that infusing the mint had turned the cream a pale green.. what you could indeed describe as a minty green (I’ve looked at too many paint charts).

While the custard was cooling I got my chocolate ready. I like a nice dark chocolate, but to satisfy slightly more than just me we settled on a semisweet, two bars of Ghirardelle. I turned them into small flakes with a potato peeler, slowly peeling each bar down, some of it came off in chunks, but they were still very small, despite what it looks like in the picture!

The ice cream got churned and the chocolate was folded in once it was done. Transferred to a container it was frozen completely.

The flavour of this ice cream threw some people off, the spearmint rather than peppermint as I said before is more savoury. This wasn’t bad, oh no, not at all, in fact it was very favourably received. Watching people eat it for the first time was entertaining, as they took a mouthful, had that “oh” moment, stopped to think about it…. and then ate the rest of the bowl and went in search of more.  I do believe the slightly bitter chocolate complemented the sweetness perfectly, the flakes making for a smoother texture, melting in your mouth and blending with the ice cream rather than having to crunch it.

We made a caramel ganache to go in some molded truffles, and a cherry bounce cordial, we even coloured the chocolate accordingly. Our favourite piece (and the piece with the most reviews) was a white chocolate lemon truffle piped out and then it had sugar crystals grown onto it to form a protective shell.

Our first attempt at taffy was mostly a success, made with Godiva chocolate liqueur it had a nice smooth flavour. A little too chewy perhaps but fun to make!

We finished with peppermint sticks. Hand pulled and twisted, we definitely need more practice there!

We also made some bacon dog treats for the pups in our lives. All reports indicate that they went down very well indeed!

We hope 2010 brings you nothing but happiness.