Breastcancer Awareness Bake: Millionairess Shortbread

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. So it seems serendipitous that I saw this recipe for M&M Bark only the day after I bought several tubes of pink smarties last week.

The two events collided in my sleep-addled brain one night when I needed a treat to make for a bake sale and this delicious NO BAKE Millionairess Shortbread is the result. Why Millionairess? Because ’tis pink, of course.

It’s a take on the classic Millionaire’s Shortbread of course, but should that send you spinning into paroxysms of fear about making caramel and shortbread then I urge you to remain calm. There is no, I repeat NO BAKING. You can whip this treat up in a matter of minutes and watch it disappear just as fast. In fact I strongly recommend that you only make it just before you need it, since leaving it laying around seems to add inches to the waistband. I speak from experience.

You will need:

1 pack of digestive biscuits (approx 200-300g)

1 250g bag of plain toffees (approx 35)

1 tbsp double cream

300g milk chocolate

1 pack of pink smarties

Unwrap all your toffees and put in a non-stick pan with the cream over a very low heat then line a baking pan- mine is a square 20cm pan- with greaseproof paper.

Whilst your caramel is ‘cooking’, break the biscuits into pieces (don’t bother with the bag-and-rolling-pin-malarkey, since you want pieces rather than crumbs) and arrange in the base of the baking pan.

Pour the melted caramel over the top of the biscuits, trying to cover as much as you can. You need to work swiftly as the caramel starts setting once off the heat.

Leave the caramel to set and melt the chocolate. I just throw it in the caramel pan and put it on a low heat *look away chocolatiers* but you could use a microwave or do the proper bowl-over-steaming-water thing. Pour the melted chocolate over the contents of the pan. Smooth over the liquid chocolate to the very edges so that the whole is evenly covered, then sprinkle the smarties across the top.

Allow to cool in the fridge. Remove once set, then slice into pieces and remove from the house immediately to avoid temptation.