Starbucks Belgian Chocolate Caramel Shortbread

The Starbucks Belgian Chocolate Caramel Shortbread costs £4.10 and carries 406 calories with 34g of sugar and 12g of saturated fat. A shortbread base with a caramel layer and Belgian chocolate on top.

Three layers, three different fats and sugars stacked, which is what produces the numbers. The shortbread base is roughly a third butter, the caramel is sugar cooked with condensed milk and more butter, and the chocolate on top adds cocoa butter over both. 12g of saturated fat is 60 percent of an adult daily reference intake in a small square.

At 406 calories it is nonetheless mid range for the case, well below the caramelised biscuit cube at 506 and the chocolate muffin at 572, because the portion is small and dense rather than large.

Fibre at 1.2g is the lowest in the Bakery case. Shortbread is white flour and butter with nothing to contribute any, and neither caramel nor milk chocolate brings much either. Protein at 4.8g is also the lowest here, and salt sits at 0.42g.

The three layer square is a British invention with a Scottish name, millionaire's shortbread, and the name is doing something specific: shortbread alone was the everyday biscuit, and adding caramel and chocolate made it the rich version. Starbucks sells it under a different description, but it is the same thing that has been in UK bakeries for a century.

Belgian on a chocolate label is a description of where it was made rather than a quality standard in itself, though Belgian chocolate makers do work to a tradition of higher cocoa butter content, which is what gives a coating its snap and its clean melt.

It is labelled vegetarian and declares soya, wheat and milk, one of the shorter lists in the case. Prices reach £4.85 on delivery. The triple chocolate brownie is the other dense chocolate square at 418 calories.