Healthy Millionaire Shortbread {Without Condensed Milk}

This healthy Millionaire Shortbread is made without condensed milk or refined sugars and uses a date paste caramel. The shortbread's made with coconut sugar and the whole thing's topped with a layer of chocolate. It's sweet and kid friendly. Treats don't get much better than this!

Healthy Millionaire Shortbread

I should probably say healthier rather than healthy but they're certainly a Cleaner version than the ones we used to buy in the shops and is our take on a classic millionaire's shortbread.

I can't pretend we didn't used to eat these on a fairly regular basis. They're delicious.

As a sweet treat, the mixture of shortbread with a layer of sweet sticky caramel was pretty irresistible.

But..but but but, they're not great, the ones you buy from the store. Every layer, the shortbread, caramel and chocolate topping of course has bucket loads of refined (usually) white sugar.

So I wanted to make a Cleaner version. And these ones get the thumbs up all round.

These millionaire shortbread bars are still a treat. For starters I put a layer of chocolate on top, it's an unsweetened chocolate but chocolate all the same and so these are an occasional treat and not an every day thing. Or an every week thing for that matter either!

All that said Clean eating has to be sustainable for us and so having some treat sweet snacks like these is very much a part of our diet. I just try to swap out some of the ingredients for healthier ingredients.

Use these as weekend treats, lunchbox snacks or dessert. They're a great little afternoon pick me up :)

Shortbread

The biscuit base I use for these bars is a shortbread of a kind - but it's not the usual shortbread you might be used to! I use coconut sugar to replace the usual refined sugar that's most often used. The result is a more caramel flavored biscuit that's a little chewier than traditional shortbread.

I can only seem to ever find coconut sugar that's in a granulated texture, I've never seen it where I live in a finer texture and so I whizz mine up in the Nutribullet before baking the biscuit base with it so that I get a finer biscuit.

If you have a food processor or Nutribullet I'd advise you do this, while you can make these without blending the sugar you'll find the biscuit 'grainer'. They'll taste the same, it's just the texture you'll notice might be different.

I've used buckwheat flour to make these bars. You could also use Einkorn flour or white spelt flour if you can get them easier. I prefer to use a white flour to make these. I wanted to make them as much like the real thing as I could and whole wheat flour can be a bit heavy and the white versions of healthier flours seem to work much better.

* I have tried to use almond flour and coconut flour to make these and found both the flours too absorbent, so these I don't recommend!

Caramel Layer

The caramel I make these with is a sweet and gooey type of caramel, made without condensed milk.

Dates and peanut butter make up the bulk of this delicious layer, with a little coconut oil added to make it runnier. I use dates for lots of caramel-y flavored baking, this date paste is something I use often and it's well worth keeping some in the fridge.

I use smooth peanut butter to make this to mimic caramel and it gives you a creamy buttery taste. The overall flavor is not too peanuty although you can definitely taste it. Having peanut butter in this caramel layer also helps the caramel to set so you can slice your millionaire bars and get a clean cut.

*You can also use a nut butter if your choice other than peanut butter

Chocolate Layer

A chocolate layer? Yep. I don't use chocolate all that much but if it adds something essential to a recipe, I'm all in. I use unsweetened chocolate, but use whatever you prefer. These are treats, occasional snacks, not everyday foods and so sometimes I'm happy to slack a little!

You can use dark chocolate or milk chocolate. Traditionally these are made with milk chocolate and my kids much prefer milk chocolate. You can buy either bars of chocolate chips.

There's a couple of ways you can melt the chocolate to pour into the caramel to make the top layer. I believe the 'proper' way to melt chocolate is to pop it into a bowl over a simmering pan of boiling water and gently steam it until it melts. I prefer the far less professional way of chocolate melting and use the microwave.

Break the chocolate into small pieces and microwave it for 30 seconds at a time and give it a stir in-between each 30 seconds. It's quite easy to burn chocolate when you're melting it and so this is why the simmering pan method is more popular, but if you're careful the microwave does the job just as well.

You don't need to wait for the chocolate to be fully melted, it will continue to melt after it's 'almost there' if you keep stirring it.

More Clean Eating Snacks

• Perfect Peanut Butter Muffins
• Cheesy Carrot Muffins
• Quick Cinnamon Flapjacks
• Sweet Raspberry Oat Slice
• Blueberry Flapjacks
• Chocolate Flapjacks

Slicing Your Millionaire Bars

Once you've put your millionaire bars together, you'll want to put them into the fridge so they can set, the caramel will become former and the chocolate layer on the top will set hard and you're left with a delicious looking square of millionaire shortbread.

But this poses a problem if like me, you like your baking to be neat...SO...once the bars have set, turn your baking out onto a chopping board so the shortbread is facing you.

Put the kettle on and dip a really sharp knife into the hot water for a couple of minutes and then dry it fully.

You can then slice the bars from the bottom and the hot knife will slice easily through the whole thing, then turn your individual bars over chocolate side up and they're ready to store. And your bars will be all neat and pretty!

Of course you could just dive straight in and cut through these from the top, just be aware the chocolate will crack. It's really no big deal at all, but I know lots of us like a clean cut!

Storing Millionaire Bars

Once these are made you can keep them for up to 3 days in an airtight container.

I keep these millionaire bars in the fridge to keep the chocolate and caramel firm, I slice them into bars as soon as they're ready and then take them out an hour or so before they're going to be eaten so that the biscuit base can soften slightly and the chocolate temperature comes up a little.

If you want to use these for lunchboxes I recommend wrapping them in parchment paper straight from the fridge and then by the time they're eaten at morning break they'll have had a chance to warm up slightly.

I've never put these bars in the freezer and frozen them. There's no reason you can't though, I suggest individually wrapping them in parchment paper before popping them in and then you can take out and thaw overnight in the fridge only what you need.

How To Make Healthy Millionaire Shortbread

Ingredients

• Biscuit base
• 1 Cup Flour Buckwheat, Einkorn, White Spelt
• ½ Cup Butter Cold, cut into very small cubes
• ½ Cup Coconut sugar Blended in a processor to get a finer grain
• Date Caramel
• 30ish Dates Whole, pitted
• ½ Cup Peanut butter Smooth, 100% peanuts
• 2 tbsp Coconut oil Softened
• 1 tbsp Vanilla bean paste Or Vanilla extract
• ½ tsp Salt
• Chocolate Topping
• 1 Cup Unsweetened chocloate

Instructions

• Biscuit base
• Heat your oven to 190c or 370c depending on your oven
• Line an 8 inch tin with parchment paper and then rub lightly with a little butter to stop the biscuit base sticking
• Process the coconut sugar so you get a finer texture and then put it into a large mixing bowl
• Add the flour to the mixing bowl and then put the fridge cold butter cubes in. Using your finger tips, rub the butter into the flour and sugar until you have a 'crumb' mixture. The crumbs should be fine and there shouldn't be any clumps of butter. This can take several minutes to get all the butter properly rubbed in
• Press the biscuit mixture into the lined tin and using the back of a dessert spoon press the mixture into the tin so it's compressed well and then bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven and let it fully cool down
• Date Caramel
• Add all the ingredients to the processor except the coconut oil and process until the mixture is smooth and fully blended. You may have to scrape down the sides of the processor several times to make sure all the ingredients are combined. Add the coconut oil one tablespoon at a time until you have the consistency of caramel. You might need slightly more or less than I used depending on the size of your dates so add it slowly until a smooth caramel consistency is reached
• Turn the caramel out into a clean bowl while you wait for the biscuit base to cool down. When it has, add the caramel to the biscuit base and use a spoon to press it into the corners and then put it into the fridge for 10 minutes to firm up
• Chocolate Topping
• Melt the chocolate (see post for how to do this) and then pour it onto the caramel. Set in the fridge for an hour before slicing, serving and eating your caramel shortbread bars

Healthy Millionaire Shortbread Recipe {Without Condensed Milk}