Caramel Shortbread Squares

I have been busy in the kitchen this holiday season... just in case you were wondering where I was :P I just have been too swamped with work to post anything online. But now I've finally gotten the time, so here goes.

I decided to try out a new recipe this Christmas but wasn't sure if I wanted to make cookies, chocolate or candy. Then I was searching through allrecipes.com and stumbled across this recipe for Caramel-Shortbread Squares. Pictured above, are the cute little squares I created using my 8x8 square baking pan, but since the recipe called for a 9x9 pan I ended up with some leftover ingredients. What did this mean? Well, it was time to tweak a recipe and make it my own.

My mom is always commenting on how I have so many baking utensils, pans and accessories that I don't use... actually, it's more like she complains about it :P So I decided to use some of thos individual tart molds (the ones I used for my mini pumpkin pies) to make mini caramel shortbread tartelettes. I divided the extra ingredients between 5 tart pans and layered them the same way I layered the squares. But for a little added flare, I swirled in some white chocolate... how elegant. Sorry about the picture, you can't really see the swirls very well... but you get the picture.

The white chocolate added such a nice touch that I decided to try making one tart with a white chocolate layer. It actually turned out beautifully as the layers were more contrasted than when I had used mere milk chocolate.
It's a guarantee that if you make these tarts/squares for a party you will get many oooo's and aaaaahhs. My friends loved the layering affect and would have gobbled them all up, had they not been uber-rich and crazy-sweet.