Talk:Caramel shortbread

Recipe Request
hi i need to know how to make caramel slices/shortbread and i need to know how many people are in australia --124.168.37.77 (talk) 08:55, 18 May 2009 (UTC)kroberts

thanx bye bye and answer my questions
 * Wikipedia dosen't tell you how to make cuisines but can't you look up Australia in the search bar on the left of the screen to find out how many people live in Australia? Kausill (talk) 12:07, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh and 21.7 million live in Australia... Kausill (talk) 12:09, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Er, "Made popular by triple starred chef Heston Blumenthal"? In the same way that dancing was made popular by, say, Disco? I seem to remember caramel slices flying off the shelves before Mr B had boiled his first egg. Blumenboi Publicity Dept? Wooter (talk) 19:13, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Most commonly called “caramel squares”?
This just doesn’t make any sense, as if it were the most common name (which I doubt) it would be the name in the article title, surely? As far as I can see, you might have some competition between “caramel shortbread” and “millionaire’s shortbread“, as the latter is widely used, but “caramel squares” wouldn’t come close (shortbread is rarely made square, more likely in fingers…). Jock123 (talk) 19:22, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed: may be true of a particular geographical area, but claim is unsubstantiated. Ceartas 19:11, 27 August 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ceartas (talk • contribs)

"Caramel Squares" SHOULD be the title of the article. It is the ONLY name i have EVER encountered. Millionaire's shortcake? What on earth? Every bakery i have been to sells them as Caramel Squares. Every pack purchasable refers to thme as Caramel Squares. Of course, they often come in triangle form in cafes, in which case it is permissable to say Caramel Triangle. I'm from Northern Ireland, does that make a difference? Oh, and i'm the one who first added "Most commonly called caramel squares", because it actually is true, and does make sense Jock123. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.214.170.234 (talk) 12:31, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The name is different in various regions. I'm in England, and I've personally never heard them called caramel squares over here. I call them caramel shortbread myself. Millionaire shortbread is a very common term for it (see   and ). I took "Wellington Squares" out for now, as i can't find much reference to it apart from a different recipe using Mars Bars. --82.68.11.50 (talk) 09:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Since they're available in shapes other than squares it would be silly to use that for the name of the article... Peter Law (talk) 18:03, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

But that's what they're called usually. And they're almost always square or rectangular. Occasionally in large triangles in cafés. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.218.88.146 (talk) 15:49, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Why "millionaire's shortbread"?
Does anyone know (or, better still, know of a source explaining) why they're called millionaire's shortbreads? Peter Law (talk) 18:03, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I was always told by my parents that it was because this is the kind of shortbread millionaire's would eat ie not plain boring shortbread, but encrusted with luxury things! Certainly costs a damn sight more to make than plain shortbread Ewan carmichael (talk) 12:38, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Scottish?
The infobox gives its place of origin as Scotland, but the article text and two of the three sources indicate Australia (although one of these sources references the other). I think the place of origin has to be either nailed down firmly with further sources, or removed from the article entirely. 176.24.33.44 (talk) 10:41, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I was born in Edinburgh in 1954, and, as a school child in the late 50's and most of the 60's we had caramel shortcake served as a dessert (with or without custard) after school lunch. My mother often made the treat too, from, I think, her years as a catering staff member, during the war, where she was stationed at the Swynnerton Munitions factory, Staffordshire, England. I think the recipe must have found it's way around the world after the second world war but could not have started life in Australia, just made it's way there with either home recipes from Scotland or via the Ministry of Food recipes used by such catering staff during the war. Australia may have published the first magazine recipe but the recipe is much, much older than the 1970's stated for Australia. I have an old booklet of cocoa and chocolate recipes (printed by and for Cadbury's) by Mrs D D Cottington-Taylor, Director of the Good Housekeeping Institute, London. It's first printing date is 1949, my copy is dated 1966 and was a reprinted as a "special" 10th edition printed for New Zealand.

The references to condensed milk cooked as a caramel (or Dulce de Leche) is another clue to the second world war as this was the most readily available source of sugar to make caramel as all sugar was strictly rationed but condensed milk was available in tins and tubes in services rations. It was a way of making a quick cup of a sweet milky drink (either tea or coffee, as available) with ease and minimal fuss, and is still much preferred by many elderly people - as opposed to milk and sugar.

Real Scottish Shortbread (including Caramel Shortbread) Best shortbread recipe ever, melts on the mouth straight onto your hips ! Ingredients: 100g softened butter 50g caster sugar 100g plain flour 50g fine semolina Extra caster sugar to decorate Method: Beat the butter & sugar together till light & fluffy. Sift the flour & semolina tighter then work into the butter mixture divide into 12 equal balls. I weigh these to ensure that they bake at the same rate & bake in a shallow 12 section patty tin. Flatten each ball then prick well to prevent the shortbreads from rising then bake at gas mark 4/350°F/180°c for about 10-12 minutes or till just beginning to colour, remove from the oven & cool the whole tray on a wire rack (dust with the extra caster sugar now or it will all fall off when you try to eat them – very messy !) and only remove from the tin when firm enough as they are a bit fragile when first removed from the tin. Store in an air tight tin, or they will vanish very quickly, like the Angels share of Whisky !

Variations: to be mixed with or sifted into the flour before mixing the shortbread, remmeber to reduce the flour by the additions. •	For coffee shortbread sift 1 tbl coffee powder. •	For almond shortbread add 85g ground almonds in place of the semolina. •	For custard shortbread sift 1-2 tbl custard powder. •	For citrus shortbread add fine zest of 2 citrus fruits of choice. •	For green tea shortbread sift contents of 1 green tea teabag. •	For Christmas spiced shortbread sift 1-2tsp ground spices of choice. •	For hazelnut shortbread add 110g ground or finely chopped hazelnuts in place of the semolina. •	For chocolate shortbread add 3-4 tbl of finely grated chocolate of choice. •	For mocha shortbread add 3-4 tbl of finely grated chocolate of choice and 1 tbl coffee powder. •	For ginger shortbread sift 1 tsp ground ginger into the flour, an optional addition of 55g finely chopped crystallised ginger can also be added. •	For caramel shortbread top plain shortbread with *condensed milk caramel* and dark chocolate.
 * condensed milk caramel* or Dulce de Leche. Pour the contents of a tin of condensed milk into a stainless steel bowl, cover with foil and cook in a bain marie till thick and golden brown.  Cool before spreading over shortbread then when cold and firm coat with dark chocolate.

(G M Rigg 22/2/2019)

Requested move 4 November 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 21:08, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Caramel shortbread → Caramel slice – Caramel slice is the primary name used for this sweet in Australia. This is how it has been written in many core texts such as the early Women's Weekly recipe books. In popular culture, when it is sold at Australian bakeries, it is called Caramel slice, regardless of whether it has a shortbread base. SunnyBoi (talk) 10:07, 4 November 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. –Ammarpad (talk) 09:26, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Support As the dessert appears to have originated primarily in Australia (where it is most popular), "Caramel slice" should be used per WP:TIES. It also appears to be the name most commonly used. AusLondonder (talk) 07:37, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment. Is it really most popular in Australia? It's incredibly popular in the UK too, where it's usually known as millionaire's shortbread. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:04, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The common name for this is "caramel shortbread" or possibly "millionaire's shortbread". And per Necrothesp I don't think it has any particular WP:TIES, it is found in many places. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 00:31, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose: I know it as "millionaire's shortbread". It's not primarily from Australia. --Woofboy (talk) 03:37, 14 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Naming controversy
I understand this dessert goes by a large number of different names, strongly associated with particular regions. It appears that there is an extreme amount of bias regarding name and place of origin for this sweet that has led to lessened scholarly rigour for the article. The term 'caramel shortbread' seems to be one of the more uncommon names for the dessert. As an Australian the most common name I have come across is 'caramel slice' but it appears online that the most common name is 'millionaires shortbread'. Therefore, I think it would be prudent to change the name of the article to 'millionaires shortbread' but I would like to hear some other peoples thoughts. 59.102.12.138 (talk) 10:12, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Clean up
Just performed a bit of a clean up on this article. To note a few things; Thanks. -- Escape Orbit (Talk) 12:49, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The claim about which national cuisine it should be associated with seems to be disputed and mixed. However, the easy solution to this is to remove all claims because none of them are sourced.  If a reliable source can be found that settles this, then please re-add.
 * First appearance of a recipe in an Australian magazine certainly suggests it was known in Australia at the time, but does not settle anything about where it originated. Obviously a there was a great deal of cultural cross over between Australia and the UK at the time.
 * The source provided to support the association with the Duke of Wellington was extremely weak, and even casts uncertainty on it itself.
 * Wikipedia is not a cookbook, so the inclusion of recipes and baking instructions is inappropriate.
 * Whilst the exact origin of the dessert is disputed there doesn't appear to be much dispute over associated national cuisine. it is important to distinguish that associated national cuisines and nation of of origin are separate things. A dish can also be associated with multiple cuisines (the wikipedia page for pavolva is a good example). Most sources suggests an association with either Australia and/or Scotland/Great Britain. The source 196 flavours is a good example which describes its relevance in both Australia and Scotland. Therefore it may be prudent to retain the sections on associated national cuisine as a way to denote its importance to both nations whilst remaining neutral on its country of origin. 14.2.58.80 (talk) 15:20, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 5 June 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Consensus is not favoring "Caramel slice" as the most common name. (non-admin closure) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 17:56, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Caramel shortbread → Caramel Slice – The most commonly used name for this dessert appears to be Caramel Slice. Although multiple name variants exist, when comparing search results on Google Caramel Slice consistently predominates over all other results. Renaming this article in line with this would make the article more relevant to most user searches for the topic. The lead sentence in the article will still retain its reference to other common names. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=caramel%20shortbread,caramel%20slice,millionaires%20shortbread,caramel%20squares 110.174.11.105 (talk) 06:39, 5 June 2022 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * It should probably be Caramel slice (lower case "s") if moved as its not a proper noun.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 09:18, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Of course, that was my mistake. 139.132.188.33 (talk) 02:45, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment. I closed the previous move request above, but it may be worth noting that the map at the Google Trends link provided here gives a strong indication that the name used for this is highly dependent on location, suggesting that WP:ENGVAR may apply. It looks like 98% "caramel slice" in Australia and New Zealand, but only 8% "caramel slice" in the UK, 9% in Canada, 16% in the US, 13% in Ireland. Dekimasu よ! 13:02, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thats a good point. It seems that there is no universally popular name for the dessert as all names are strongly geographically linked. So although 'Caramel slice' may not be the name that all readers know the dessert by, a larger proportion would recognise the name than the current 'Caramel shortbread'. 139.132.188.33 (talk) 02:44, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Dekimasu and previous RM. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:46, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose. "Millionaire shortbread" appears as a suggestion before "Millionaire's shortbread" in Google search, and Google Trends including "millionaire shortbread": https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=caramel%20shortbread,caramel%20slice,millionaires%20shortbread,caramel%20squares,millionaire%20shortbread shows there is not a clearly most commonly used name. The article was created with the title "Caramel Shortbread" and the current title has the advantage of being the most descriptive (and therefore probably most recognisable). A865 (talk) 00:29, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Removed big chunk of article
Removing a big chunk but it simply wasn't supported by the sources, have looked through the sources and when information was first added. Nothing has acceptable WP:RS, heaps of WP:OR. All the Australian and Women's Weekly stuff from added by someone who cited their own blog as a reference. Other more recent sources were things like food blogs which are copy pastes of previous edits of this page. It's the Brazilian Aardvark all over again. Frond Dishlock (talk) 09:44, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Origins
I think the paragraph on Australian origins should be removed. Its original text was added here in 2013 by an editor Glynhughes who changed its Country from Scotland to Australia, removing text that suggested a Scottish origin, and replacing it with a myth about Australian Women's Weekly. The source for their claim is Foods of England a site written by someone called Glyn Hughes. So that's citing one's own original research blog. The link to Women's Weekly goes to a page from 1981 which is well after the claim of 1970's origin. This Wikipedia myth is picked up, I assume, by Felicity Cloake writing in The Guardian in 2016 as an aside. We now cite that aside, as though it is a fact. Later the "history" was amended by an IP to note that the 1970 recipe here lacks a chocolate top, so isn't really the same thing at all.

According to my mum, Millionaires Shortbread was definitely made at home and served in coffee shops in the late 1960s Glasgow, Scotland. And I personally have enjoyed eating it in the 1970s. The idea that this Scottish recipe originated in Australia seems to be an original research brain fart.

The OED claims that their "earliest evidence for [the name] millionaire's shortbread is from 1990, in the writing of C. MacDonald." Presumably this is Claire Macdonald, a Scottish cookery book author. This would suggest perhaps that these day's the OED doesn't try very hard, or have anyone from Scotland on their staff.

A problem with food articles is that the sources often aren't any good, with writers more interested in the recipes and juicy anecdotes than about getting historical facts right. I think here we have created a myth about Australian origins that has been repeated by writers since. Time to remove it. We don't actually have any factual evidence of its Australian origin, just people guessing who didn't have someone else around, from Scotland, say, to tell them they are being daft. -- Colin°Talk 16:03, 30 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Bon Appétit published a recipe under the name "Millionaire's Shortbread" in the US in 1984, so the OED is certainly wrong. Google Books gives a hit for that name in the 1958 Plats Du Jour, but there is no preview or text to verify that it's about this recipe.
 * The comment just above this section indicates that some sources were removed in January 2023, if you want to dig through the history in the hope of finding something useful.
 * This is the sort of semi-obvious dish that could have been invented separately by many people. Identifying a single origin might be as futile as trying to identify the origin of chocolate cake. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:48, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes I saw that comment and looked at the history. A chunk was removed but then a lot added back by the IP who found the 1970 recipe to be for something without the chocolate topping.
 * I think we've got a weird result that occured because for some reason, Australian Women's Weekly is archived on the internet and searchable, whereas the UK baking magazines aren't and many home baking recipes were and are informally shared. Perhaps there are all sorts of recipes incorrectly attributed to Australian because of this archive?
 * The snippet view I get for Bon Appetit has "MILLIONAIRE'S SHORTBREAD An Isle of Eriska teatime favorite, topped with caramel and chocolate . Makes about 5 dozen Shortbread 1/2 cup pastry flour 1/2 cup all purpose flour 1/3 cup superfine sugar 7 tablespoons well-chilled...." and Eriska is a Scottish island. I'm disappointed in the OED.
 * Comments further up note that it was well known in post war Scotland. It could well have been invented multiple times. -- Colin°Talk 10:43, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I think that saying it's "associated with" various places without declaring any one of them to be the sole true origin is probably the right approach.
 * My mother's explanation for the name was that it was a "rich" dish (i.e., high calorie/high fat/high sugar – "too rich for children", lest they get tummy aches). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 7 February 2024 (UTC)