*Post and photos updated from March 27, 2014 I’ll be the first to admit I don’t love shortbread. Generally, I just don’t like food that is hard. And shortbread is hard. I’d much rather be eating a gooey, slightly underbaked chocolate/peanut butter/butterscotch/white chocolate chip cookie. Or pretty much anything that is soft, gooey or chewy-in-a-good-way. And a hard, crunchy crust that’s topped with a gooey, caramel filling? That’s the way to my heart. I guess I get that from my mom. She is one to always knock a couple minutes off the bake time and hold on to some of that gooey-chewy goodness. Growing up, her buns and her cookies were always, always perfectly baked. Think not a second past light golden brown. I find that I now set the timer for a good 5-10 minutes shorter than what the recipe calls for and then anxiously watch the oven for that perfect second. But as a mother of a toddler, and the queen (I wish) of multi-tasking, sometimes I wander a little too far or get a little too busy doing other things and time slips away from me. And then I am bolting for the kitchen and pulling my pans out as quickly as I can, dramatically wailing, “it’s BURNT!” for my audience of two and putting on my biggest “I’m-just-a-big-failure” pout. This is when my husband walks over and says, “it’s golden brown.” And I reply, “it’s dark golden brown!” Sigh Oh… the dramatic lives we live. Anyway, back to these shortbread bars. Plain shortbread is a no for me. But a shortbread crust designed to be an edible plate for caramel, toasted coconut and chocolate? Divine. My mom often made these when we were growing up, minus the toasted coconut. I was dreaming of these bars when I thought since the chocolate and caramel were already there, it was a shame not to have any toasted coconut. I am a bit of a samoa fanatic. These bars are samoa heaven. To see instructions for toasting coconut, see my No-Bake Samoa Cookie recipe. Create an account easily save your favorite content, so you never forget a recipe again. Register Now Tag @thereciperebel or hashtag #thereciperebel — I love to see what you’re making!
