Luxe up your shortbread with these indulgent recipes

Whether it's a coffee-caramel shortbread slice or a gold-dusted family favourite, these recipes make the buttery biscuit even better.

Billionaire shortbread bars with salted coffee chocolate. Credit: Comfort Food With Spencer Watts

We love a good classic shortbread recipe (and if that's what you are after, you'll find what you need right here) but the buttery biscuit/bar can also be the base for more indulgent delights.

Here's how to go luxe:

Golden Gaytime shortbread sandwich

Shortbread biscuits with a choc and crumb coating and, caramel buttercream filling! Make your own malty crumbs, or for a quicker version, use crushed plain sweetened biscuits instead.

Golden Gaytime shortbread Source: SBS / SBS Food

Chocolate shortbread fingers

The Chocolate Queen, Kirsten Tibballs, has taken her mother's go-to Breton-style shortbread recipe and taken it next-level with a layer of milk chocolate. If you like, you can dust with a little gold lustre powder to add an extra layer of luxury.

Chocolate shortbread fingers. Credit: The Chocolate Queen

Chocolate-and-hazelnut shortbread

Simple to make, all the ingredients for these brown sugar, chocolate and hazelnut shortbread rounds are simply brought together in a food processor (and if you don't have one, don't worry - Anneka Manning has given instructions for mixing by hand too). Then just roll into balls and flatten with a fork before baking.

Billionaire shortbread bars with salted coffee chocolate

You've heard of millionaire's shortbread? In this recipe from Comfort Food with Spencer Watts, the Canadian cook has taken the idea to dessert territory with three layers of ultimate indulgence. The shortbread base is topped with a rich dulce de leche mix with a hint of cardamom, and the chocolate top later is flavoured with coffee, cinnamon and a pinch of cayenne.

Billionaire shortbread bars with salted coffee chocolate. Credit: Comfort Food With Spencer Watts

Salted peanut millionaire’s shortbread

Sticking with the caramel slice theme, this version of the timeless favourite adds salted peanuts to the gooey, buttery caramelised condensed milk filling.

Credit: China Squirrel

Middle Eastern millionaire’s shortbread

The three-layer caramel slice gets a whole new set of flavours in the hands of Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh. Here the shortbread base gets a halva middle layer and a glossy tahini caramel on top.

Middle Eastern millionaire's shortbread Credit: PEDEN + MUNK

Vegan millionaire's shortbread

And here's a version for vegans, or others who don't eat dairy.

Credit: HQ Non Fiction

Honey bourbon peach trifle

Combine a honey bourbon caramel sauce, buttery shortbread, fresh peaches and homemade vanilla whipped cream to make a decadent peach trifle.

Honey bourbon peach trifle Credit: Kitti Gould

Okinawan salted shortbread

Inspired by two of the treasured products of the islands of Okinawa in Japan, a rich, black sugar called kokutou and mineral-rich sea salts, this recipe from Adam Liaw uses just four ingredients and shows how simple can be perfect.

Credit: Steve Brown / Hachette Australia

Lemon bars

Lemon bars are one of those ‘clever’ slices that combines a simple shortbread-like base and an intensely-tart/sweet lemon topping to create a memorable mouth puckering moment – old-fashioned yet slightly sophisticated, all at the same time. A fantastic recipe from Anneka Manning.

Caramel sandwich biscuits (alfajores)

Alfajores, shortbread biscuits sandwiched with rich dulce de leche, are popular in countries including Argentina and Chile. As well as the Chilean version shown below, which uses purchased dulce de leche, there's also this version, where the caramel filling is made using condensed milk, and the sides of the filled biscuits are rolled in coconut.