Caramel slice is the iconic item found in almost every Australian bakery, and with its softly crunchy biscuit base and soft caramel filling topped with chocolate it’s easy to see why.

Millionaire’s Shortbread, caramel shortbread, Wellington Squares, chocolate caramel shortbread, caramel slice. Whatever you call it the simple fact remains that this deliciously sweet treat has remained an icon of the Australian baking scene for decades.

With countless recipe variations and even one high profile battle over provenance, it’s almost impossible to pinpoint exactly where and when caramel slice first came to be.

Some baking enthusiasts point to Scotland where in the early 1950s the concept of combining traditional Scottish shortbread with a layer of caramel first began to emerge, and in the 1970s the first print recipe for the dessert appeared in The Australian Women’s Weekly magazine – minus the chocolate top. In 1981 the updated recipe featuring the three-layers was printed and so a legend was created.

Creating a classic

St Kilda’s Monarch Cakes has been a Melbourne baking institution for more than 90 years, and has had caramel slice – made using the same recipe no less – on their shelves for at least 30 of those.

Manager Nikki Laski, whose parents own Monarch Cakes, has had a front row seat to customer preferences for years and said they had witnessed the popularity of caramel slice wane – and more recently wax throughout the decades.

“I think caramel slice is on trend at the moment,” she said.

“It is interesting when you have a bakery as old as ours, you see products gain momentum then they quieten down after a while [and] then other products are the ‘in’ item.

“We have found that our caramel slice has been popular over the decades but is definitely having a renaissance currently. I guess it is a slice that is reminiscent of one’s childhood. We have a lot of British customers that love our product and tell us it reminds them of ‘back home’.”

So, where do you begin when creating a classic?

Nikki said, like with any truly outstanding product, it all comes down to perfecting the recipe and then sourcing the best ingredients possible.

The classic caramel slice consists of a shortbread base, caramel centre and chocolate top

Making caramel slice can be deceptively simple, however, she said, each element has to be absolutely perfect from the shortbread base to the caramel filling and chocolate layer.

“Our caramel slice has a decadent taste and richness. The reason for its luxury feel is the quality of the ingredients. We make a shortbread base that uses the highest grade New Zealand butter. It is what makes the base taste so delicious,” Nikki said.

“Many bakers do not consider the base to be important and instead is simply the carrier of the caramel. But we regard the base as the starting point to an A-grade product. The caramel filling is rich, creamy and not sickly sweet, and the top is a high grade dark Swiss chocolate – again a factor in our end result.

“To make a great product you must use top quality ingredients. Once you try to substitute with cheaper ingredients, the product changes. We believe, especially in the current cost of living crunch, that you are better off to decrease the product size than to use lower grade ingredients.”

Caramel slice, but not as you know it

Is it possible to take an item as beloved as caramel slice and reimagine it? Susan Retzlaff aka Free Range Chef, tackled this concept head on and the accolades she has collected along the way speak for themselves.

Susan herself is a chef by trade and made the decision to make her bakery entirely gluten-free following her coeliac diagnosis. It was at this point Susan set out to create a caramel slice recipe that was as good – if not better – than those sold at traditional non gluten-free bakeries.

And, it has to be said that Susan succeeded. Most recently she took home the trophy for best caramel slice in WA at the 2025 Baking Industry Employers’ Association of WA awards – beating out entries from non gluten-free bakeries to the top spot.

Slight variations in the classic recipe can be found

But that doesn’t mean it was a straightforward process. Far from it in fact.

“At first I was scared [to attempt to make a gluten-free version]. Gluten-free can be difficult, let’s face it. I’m taking out the wheat and adding potato, rice, maize, and tapioca flours instead with no gluten to hold it together,” she said.

“But where there’s a will, there’s a way. I just kept experimenting until I perfected one that was just like I had in my childhood.”

The caramel slice recipe, which Susan still uses to this day, was one of the first gluten-free recipes she ever perfected, however, she said it took her a decade to be confident enough to enter it into a competition. A large part of this was overcoming the noise from people saying gluten-free foods tasted like carboard as they walked past Susan’s cake stall.

“That hurt, so I thought I’d enter a competition and see what the judges’ opinion was. Now I have a huge sign to remind the disbelievers that gluten-free can actually be great,” she said.

“I was the only gluten-free bakery in the competition and I competed against well known traditional bakeries.”

Like Nikki, Susan said while making a traditional caramel slice the quality of your end product all comes back to the quality of the ingredients you work with, while technique also plays a large role.

“The height of the base is very important. Too thick is a no-no. The colour, texture and flavours of all three layers are important too,” she said.

“A huge mistake is having the centre too sweet, over or under-baked, runny, gritty or burnt.”

If recreating a classic item in a gluten-free format wasn’t enough, Susan has also tackled new flavour combinations and in recent years has made variations like Snickers caramel; lemon caramel; white chocolate and ginger; coffee caramel and walnuts; lemon cranberry caramel; and chocolate caramel.

“Because why not? If you have one great recipe why not take that recipe and create more goodness?” she said.

However, Nikki said when it comes to the classics if you’re onto a good thing, don’t be afraid to stick with it. In keeping with this, she said this at Monarch Cakes they rarely change recipes or methods unless ingredients become difficult to source.

“In the case of our homestyle caramel slice that we have made for decades, we have never changed the recipe as it is perfect the way it is,” she said.

“There are so many bakeries that rely on trends to stay in business, whereas we are the opposite. We rely on traditions, continuity and consistency, which our customers expect and appreciate.

“If we were to change our recipes or adapt other flavours our customers could get upset. If we were to get creative one day we could use milk chocolate on top… or perhaps a salted caramel or even a gluten-free base. But for now we will keep it the way we have for decades.”