Millionaire’s Shortbread

One of my cousins was visiting for Easter weekend and so I wanted to prepare a few goodies for when she and her boyfriend arrived.  I skimmed through the copy of Delicious magazine that EHH had bought me recently and came across Harlequin rugby player James Johnston’s recipe for millionaire’s shortbread. Mum used to make this for us when we were kids and it is one of EHH’s favourite treats but I’d never attempted it, so I decided to have a go.

The following is my adaptation of the recipe – as I felt that the instructions in Delicious were rather limited. It is really important to keep stirring the caramel while simmering – it didn’t say this in the magazine and my first attempt at the caramel failed dismally – burning at the bottom and turning into a very strange lumpy texture. Second attempt, I kept stirring throughout and it turned out fine – except I think I took it off the heat slightly early, as it didn’t quite taste cooked through and it was lacking a bit of flavour. So make sure that you wait until the caramel has turned a nice dark golden colour before taking it off the heat.

This recipe provides a very thick caramel layer – you could probably just use one tin of condensed milk (although EHH thinks it is perfect with this very thick layer of caramel!). Next time, I may also add in some sea salt flakes to give the caramel a bit of oomph. The shortbread layer itself is incredibly simple to make but has a fantastic flavour and texture. The original recipe had only a dark chocolate topping – I added the white chocolate swirls – mainly just to look pretty!

Update October 2013 - you may also want to try my Billionaire's shortbread with salted caramel. 

Millionaire’s shortbread

Ingredients

1. 175g butter, at room temperature
2. 75g caster sugar
3. 250g plain flour
4. 200g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
5. 50g white chocolate, broken into pieces

For the caramel

1. 100g butter
2. 50g light brown sugar
3. 50g golden syrup
4. 2 x 397g tins of condensed milk

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C and grease and line a deep 30cm x 20cm baking tin with baking parchment
2. Put the butter and sugar in a large bowl and cream with an electric mixer for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy.
3. Stir in flour until evenly mixed, forming a dough.
4. Press the dough into the prepared tin, then bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden.
5. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely in the tin.
6. In a heavy based, non-stick pan, melt the butter, light brown sugar, golden syrup and condensed milk over a low heat, stirring constantly.
7. Continuing to stir constantly, bring to a simmer and then bubble gently for about 20 minutes, until it turns a dark golden colour.
8. Pour the caramel evenly over the shortbread and leave to set.
9. Put the dark chocolate into a heatproof bowl and melt over a pan of just simmering water (don’t allow the water to touch the bowl). Set aside while you do the same with the white chocolate.
10. Pour the dark chocolate over the caramel and spread evenly.
11. Driizzle the white chocolate over the dark chocolate, and then use a knife to marble the two together.
12. Leave to cool completely and then cut the shortbread into squares.

Rhubarb Crumble Muffins

So, have been meaning to start this blog for ages and, having had a very lazy weekend, I finally found the time to set something up. Not sure that this is exactly right yet but it's a start at least! 

The plan is to write up my baking successes (and failures - we all have them - fortunately my husband's work are very happy to eat them!), share great recipes, review cook books (I already have far too many!) and write reviews of the many tea shops that I visit with my husband. Being far too middle-aged for our actual ages, we spend much of our free time pottering around villages, farm shops and garden centres in search of a great piece of cake and perfect cuppa!

Today's batch of baking was made complete with rhubarb grown in our own garden. Nearly everything else that we have attempted to grown this year has been a complete disaster - but, thanks to lots of warm wet weather, the rhubarb has done brilliantly! So today's challenge were rhubarb crumble muffins. I have a recipe cut out from a magazine somewhere, but couldn't find it - so this was a bit of a gamble - adapting a recipe I have for other muffins! But muffins are fairly robust and I've made the original recipe a few times with other fruit so I figured it would be fine. The original recipe was Blackberry and Apple Crumble Muffins, found on the Delicious website. It's a really easy, quick and tasty recipe that I've just adapted slightly.  

Update - June 2013
As the rhubarb is well and truly flourishing again this year, I've just made these again. Thought I would pop a note on here as, this time, I added chopped hazelnuts to the crumble and this addition was fantastic - highly recommended! 

Rhubarb Crumble Muffins:

Ingredients

1. 400g rhubarb (halved lengthwise and then diced)
2. 40g castor sugar

1. 300g plain flour, plus a little extra for dusting
2. 1 tblsp baking powder
3. 1 tsp cinnamon
4. 1 tsp ginger
5. Pinch of salt
6. 190g caster sugar
7. 210ml milk
8. 1 large free-range egg, beaten
9. 100g butter
10. Finely grated zest of 1 large lemon

For the crumble topping

1. 25g butter, at room temperature
2. 25g plain flour
3. 25g demerara sugar
4. 25g oats
5. 15g chopped hazelnuts (optional)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC/fan180ºC/gas 6 and line a 12-hole muffin tray with paper muffin cases. 
2. Mix the rhubarb with the 40g of sugar and leave to one side.
3. Melt the 100g of butter and leave to one side to cool slightly.
4. Make the crumble topping. Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, hazelnuts and oats and work the mixture with your fingers until it forms nuggets.
5. For the muffins, sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and salt into a mixing bowl and stir in the sugar. In another smaller bowl, beat the milk with the egg, melted butter and lemon zest. 
6. Stir the wet mixture into the flour and sugar mixture until combined. (It’s fine if it’s still a bit lumpy.) 
7. Strain the rhubarb through a sieve to remove any liquid and then stir the rhubarb into the muffin mix. 
8. Spoon the mixture evenly into the paper cases and sprinkle over the crumble topping.
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes until risen and golden. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin and then cool on a wire rack.

These are fab served warm but also freeze really well. I freeze the batch of them and then defrost one at a time for weekend breakfasts – a quick zap in the microwave and they warm up beautifully and taste lovely!