Emma, from the UK, whets our appetite with this delicious Millionaire’s Shortbread recipe. Time to check what we have in the cupboard!
Tell us more!…
New kids baking recipe! Millionaires shortbread (with no eggs).
This recipe is great for older children, but younger children can do it too – but will need adult help. Make sure to bring your butter to room temperature. There are a lot of ingredients for this one so I understand it may be tricky to get them all.
Ingredients:
- 125g caster sugar
- 350g plain flour
- 225g salted butter cut into pieces
- 150g unsalted butter
- 150g light soft brown sugar
- 397g carnation condensed milk
- 300g milk chocolate
- 50g white chocolate (optional)
Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 160/gas mark 3. Line the base and sides of a cake tin with baking paper (I use 25cm square but you can use 20cm round if that’s all you have).
2. Mix the caster sugar with the flour and rub in the butter until the mixture looks like bread crumbs. Tip into the tin and press down firmly with the back of the spoon.
3. Bake for 30 minutes until pale golden brown and leave to cool in the tin.
4. Put the unsalted butter and brown sugar in a pan and heat gently until melted. Add the condensed milk and bring to a simmer.
5. Simmer for 5-10 minutes until the mixture thickens. As it cooks STIR CONTINUOUSLY WITH A WOODEN SPOON, stop mixing and the caramel will burn.
6. Pour over the biscuit base and leave until cold.
7. Melt the milk chocolate and white chocolate in separate bowls. Pour the milk chocolate on the cooled caramel.
8. Using a teaspoon, drop blobs of the white chocolate all around the milk chocolate. Using a cocktail stick, swirl the white chocolate into the milk chocolate to make a pattern.
9. Leave to set, ideally overnight. Using a warm knife, cut the millionaires shortbread into whatever size pieces you would like. Keep in an airtight container for 5 days.
TIPS: For the caramel, make sure you are continuously stirring from beginning to end, stop stirring and the caramel/sugar will burn. I know some recipes that say to pour in the condensed milk straight away but I’ve always done it this way and it’s been fine. If you would prefer to do it all together that’s fine.
Making caramel from scratch is a timely experience, DONT RUSH it. Keep it on a low – medium heat abs let it come to a simmer on it’s own. You want it to be a good simmer, almost boiling, a bit in between. If you do find some flecks of burnt sugar dont panic or throw it away! A few flecks never hurt anyone
Although the recommended time is 5 days, I’ve eaten some 10 days after and it’s been fine.
I bake mine a 25cm cake tin but I’ve done it before and split it between 2x 20cm cake tins.
Tell us a bit about yourself…
My name is Emma and I’m a hobby baker and cake decorator.
For my profession, I’m a dessert chef at a local restaurant chain. Every Wednesday we would host a kids baking club. When the government regulations were put into place and they closed the hospitality trade, my job, unfortunately, went into furlough. I really started to miss baking club. I had all these recipes to hand so I thought, why not share them!
With all the children off school and parents needing something to fill the time, why not bake some yummy treats?
I myself have 2 boys at home: Jacob who is 7 and Alex who is 3. Both love helping me bake, their favourite part is licking the mixture off the spoon.
How are you finding these recent weeks being indoors a lot?
I would be lying if I said being housebound with the kids has been easy. It’s been hard not to be able to escape these four walls. I miss work the most. I’m very fortunate to have a job that I love and a terrific work family. But as much as I complain, I will be sad when it all goes back to normal. I’ve enjoyed being able to cook the family meals, I’ve enjoyed being able to put my kids to bed on a night and read bedtime stories together, all things I used to miss out on because of work.
We have started new traditions since the lockdown like weekly movie nights, weekly game nights, and craft time. Even though some days are more tiring and stressful than others, I’m trying my best to cherish every moment of being home before normality resumes.
Do you have any tips that may help others in the Housebound With Kids community?
Tips that I have found helped throughout these tough times are:
- that you don’t need to fill every second of the day with activities because that is exhausting for both you and the children. Try to space things out, try to give each other space, make time for yourself as well as each other.
- There’s nothing wrong with letting them watch movie after movie one day or lots of tablet time another. It doesn’t make you a bad parent to want time for you too.
- Try to plan out the majority of your upcoming days, kids thrive better on a schedule and it also gives the more rewarding tasks something for them to look forward to. But then make weekends anything goes days, throw the schedules out and play it cool!
- There’s no magic tip that helps out all families, however. Just do whatever works for your household in these crazy times.
Housebound With Kids is a loving and fun community with plenty of laughs, support, and helpful advice on every post. It has helped me when I’ve run out of ideas to keep the kids occupied when bored, but it has also helped me share the kid’s baking posts with a much larger audience and for that, I am forever thankful.
