Recipes for the dish with a chocolate topping also appeared in Australia in the early 1970s in The Australian Women's Weekly.

[9] The earliest of these recipes appears in 1970 in an issue of The Australian Women's Weekly under the name "Caramel Shortbread", but this version lacks the distinctive chocolate topping.

In 2018 the dessert was featured in an episode of the American television show America's Test Kitchen.

[9][13] Many different variations of caramel shortbread exist to cater to different tastes, dietary requirements, and ingredient availability.

Some variants include using white rather than milk chocolate for the topping,[14] adding espresso and hazelnut,[15] substituting shortbread for Anzac biscuits,[16] adding raisins to the shortbread, or topping with peanut butter instead of chocolate.