Peanut Butter Caramel Squares

Another use for my tins of boiled condensed milk-turned caramel! I'm posting this now so you have plenty of time to get everything sorted to make it next weekend. It's that good.

I’m still ridiculously proud of my foray into caramel, so I thought I would try something just a little extra special. This is a basic caramel square, with an extra layer of peanut buttery deliciousness. I don’t think peanut butter and caramel can ever go wrong together, and adding chocolate on top and shortbread on the bottom is just plain smart.

I adore this traybake, the caramel was a little squidgy, but that’s ok for me! The peanut butter layer set beautifully which made up for a slightly runny caramel. Also, the shortbread could have taken a few more minutes in the oven, so I’ve adjusted the timing in the written recipe to reflect that.

It's a slightly time-consuming recipe because there's a lot of stopping and starting and chilling required, but it's not very labour intensive. And it's definitely worth it.

Ingredients for the base

• 210g butter
• 80g unsalted peanuts
• 210g plain flour
• 45g cornflour
• 100g golden caster sugar

Ingredients for the peanut butter layer

• 60g butter
• 100g peanut butter
• 75g icing sugar

Ingredients for the rest

• 1 can caramel
• 150g dark chocolate
• 60g butter
• 1.5 tbsp golden syrup

Method

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius, and grease and line a rectangular traybake tin.

Place the base ingredients in a food processor, and tip into a bowl when it is beginning to clump together.

Kneed briefly to get it all to come together, press into the tin and bake for 25-30 minutes until lovely and golden.

While that’s cooking, make the peanut layer: melt the butter and peanut butter together and stir through the icing sugar.

Pour over the base while it’s still hot and place in a fridge for 2 hours.

Take your tin of homemade caramel (I’m still so pleased about that) and tip into a bowl. Mix roughly with a spoon to make it easier to spread. When the peanut butter layer is set, spread over the caramel and place back in the fridge for another 2 hours.

When the caramel is chilled, make the topping.

Melt the chocolate, butter and golden syrup in a pan and spread on top of the caramel.

Place back in the fridge and chill for a further 2 hours or overnight.

Remove from the fridge about 30 minutes before you want to cut it.

Chop into sensible portions, and chill until ready to eat (which will be right away, pretty much).