Salted Caramel Chocolate Shortbread Bars

This was another recipe that I found when looking for dessert ideas. They turned out pretty well. Eric says it's one of his favorite things I've made.

Salted Caramel Chocolate Shortbread Bars from Annie's Eats

I wasn't completely happy with the caramel layer. It has a sweetened condensed milk base, so it was easier than some other caramel recipes, but it just didn't have that rich, buttery caramel taste that I like. I might try making these again but with the caramel from the chocolate caramel tart I've made before. Also, I spent about 35-40 minutes cooking the caramel before I decided it was done. The recipe doesn't give a temperature indication, but mine got to a little over 200. (Maybe 220?) I decided to stop when it looked like the color in the picture on the recipe. My caramel was pretty firm, but Eric says not too firm.

I did each step on a different day. The shortbread and chocolate layers were super fast/easy. I used the same Ghirardelli 65% (I think 65%) bars that I use for ganache and stuff.

I was nervous about putting on too much salt, so I used our sea salt grinder and then sprinkled the finer salt lightly across the top. I wish I had used more salt because it's very tasty on these.