Salted Peanut Fudge Squares

Another successful traybake from my stash of retro recipe books, Salted Peanut Fudge Squares are a sugary, crunchy, salty treat.

The base is essentially shortbread with the addition of peanut butter. The top is a sugary, fudgey layer, filled with salted peanuts.

Now, before someone comes along and points out that this isn’t fudge, the original recipe called this traybake ‘caramel’, which I definitely felt I couldn’t use as there’s no milk or cream in the topping. It’s not really toffee either as the topping isn’t that hard or chewy. It probably most closely resembles a butterscotch recipe, but I believe that usually is made with brown sugar. The topping also reminds me of Scottish tablet, in that it’s slightly crunchy and crumbly. Anyway, before I fall down a rabbit hole of sugary confectionary definitions, lets get to the traybake!

Ingredients

Base

4oz/110g butter, softened

3oz/85g sugar

6oz/150g plain flour (all-purpose flour)

1.5 oz/50g peanut butter

3oz/85g cornflour (corn starch)

pinch of salt

Topping

6oz/175g sugar

6oz/175g butter

2 tbsp golden syrup

8oz/225g salted, roasted peanuts

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C
2. Cream the butter, peanut butter and sugar for the base until light and fluffy.
3. Sift the flour, cornflour and salt together and work into the mixture to make a smooth dough.
4. Press into a lined tin. I used my 9″x9″ tin (23cm square).
5. Prick with a fork and bake for 15-20 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, put the sugar, syrup and butter for the topping in a small pan and heat until the sugar has dissolved.
7. Simmer for 5 minutes, then stir in the nuts. Spread over cooked base.
8. Leave to cool in the tin and then cut into squares.
9. Enjoy!

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