dessert – Nannie RaRa

Millionaires shortbread

4th Nov 2025 Nannie RaRa

The whole family adore millionaires shortbread. I only usually make it on special occasions as it takes a while to do, but it is so worth it.

The recipe I use is based on Caramel cakes in the book Cakes and Desserts published by Octopus in 1978. I have made this into a gluten-free recipe, but the only difference is the flour in the shortbread base. If you want to use ordinary flour just replace the gluten free with the same quantity of SR flour.

Ingredients

Shortbread

5 oz butter
4 oz caster sugar
10 oz gluten-free self-raising flour

Filling

4 oz butter
4 oz caster sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1 large can condensed milk (397g)

Topping

6 oz chocolate

Method

Grease a 12 x 9 inch swiss roll tin. Set the oven to 180 C.

To make the shortbread, cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl. Then work in the flour – I used a spoon to begin with, then my fingers, rubbing the ingredients together as though making a crumble.

Sprinkle the shortbread mix into the swiss roll tin, spreadly evenly and press down.

Put this into the oven for 15-20 minutes until the shortbread is golden. Take out and leave to cool.

For the filling, place all the ingredients into a saucepan. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved, stirring occasionally. Now turn up the heat, stir continuously while it comes to the boil and boil for five minutes. You might notice dark pieces floating where the sugar has caught on the pan. These are fine. The mixture will thicken and darken as it boils.

Remove from the heat after five minutes and leave for a minute before spreading onto the cooled shortbread. Leave it to set.

Break the chocolate into pieces and place in a pyrex bowl or jug. I use Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate as it is my favourite but any chocolate is fine, either milk or dark. Place the jug over a pan of hot water until the chocolate has melted.

Spread the chocolate over the set filling. Mark it into portions, leave to cool and the chocolate to harden.

millionaires shortbread with chocolate topping

Using a knife cut the millionaires shortbread into portions – I usually cut it into 8 x 6 pieces – and remove carefully from the tin. This can be frozen.

Enjoy!

Recipe

Plum pudding cake

27th Jul 202114th Jul 2022 Nannie RaRa

My greengage plum tree has had a super crop this year, but it has been a battle harvesting the plums as the blackbirds like them a lot. The trouble is the blackbirds don’t just eat one, they peck a hole and eat a little bit then go onto the next. I’ve picked several pounds of plums and stewed and frozen some, and given loads away.

I decided I’d make something a little different and produced this plum pudding cake. It can be eaten either as a cake or with cream as a dessert.

If you don’t have greengage plums, any plums will be a good substitute.

Ingredients

Approximately 20 greengage plums quartered and stoned
4 oz butter
4 oz soft brown sugar
2 eggs
6 oz self-raising flour
1/2 level teaspoon cinnamon
2 dessertspoons granulated sugar

Method

Switch on oven to 180 C

Grease and line a 7 ½ inch cake tin with greaseproof paper.

First quarter the plums. I score round each one with a knife then twist the sections off. Discard the stones.

In a bowl cream together the butter and sugar. Add one egg at a time beating each egg into the mix. Add the flour, stirring well to make a smooth mixture.

Put half the mix into the prepared cake tin, smoothing it level.

Layer half the quartered plums on top of the mix, pushing each quarter down slightly.

Spoon the rest of the mix on top, levelling as before.

Put the rest of the quartered plums on top pressing them into the mix slightly. I start with a circle round the outside, then inner circles from that. The whole surface should be mostly plums.

Sprinkle the cinnamon on top, then scatter the demerara sugar over to give a crunchy top. You can use more sugar if you like a sweeter taste.

Bake in the oven at 180 C (fan), for an hour and a quarter.

Remove the pudding cake from the tin, and if not eating it warm, cool on a wire rack. Remove the greaseproof paper.

Keep the plum pudding cake in an airtight tin.

The plum pudding cake can be eaten warm or cold either as a cake or a dessert.

My favourite is cold as a dessert served with thick cream, but then a slice with a cup of tea is rather good.

Enjoy!

Recipe

Jean’s lemon freezer cake

23rd Dec 2020 Nannie RaRa

My neighbour, Jean, gave me this easy-to-make lemon dessert recipe that is simply delicious. It can be made and kept in the freezer, taking it out and cutting a slice to eat whenever you want.

Ingredients

4 oz (114 g) icing sugar
Zest and juice of lemon
300 ml double cream
2 oz (57 g) meringue nests
half a 300 g jar lemon curd
2 lb loaf tin (or similar) lined with clingfilm

Put the icing sugar plus the juice and zest of the lemon in a large bowl. Mix together until the icing sugar has dissolved.

Mixing lemon zest and juice with icing sugar

Add the double cream and whisk all together until it forms soft peaks.

Roughly crumble the meringue nests into the mix, add teaspoonfuls of lemon curd as well.

Using a metal spoon gently fold the meringues and lemon curd into the cream. This does not need thorough mixing, finding areas of lemon curd when eating is good.

Spoon the mix into the lined tin. Cover with clingfilm and place in the freezer for a few hours.

Spoon the mixture into the tin and cover with clingfilm

The cake is now ready to eat.

Take the cake from the freezer and remove from the tin.

Turn it out onto a plate and remove clingfilm. You now have the lemon dessert. Single slices can be cut from the cake as you want them with the remainder returned to the freezer just wrapped in the clingfilm. It will keep for up to three months.

Jean's lemon freezer cake — Jean’s lemon freezer cake

Enjoy!

Recipe

Nannie Crumble

20th Nov 2020 Nannie RaRa

My grandchildren enjoy the apple crumble I make, but call it Nannie Crumble. Here’s how to create it.

Ingredients

1 lb cooking apples
3 oz sugar ( 2 oz for the puree, 1oz for the crumble)
2 oz porridge oats
2 oz self raising flour
2 oz butter

Firstly make the apple puree for the crumble. Peel and roughly chop or slice two or three large cooking apples dropping them into water as you go to prevent them from browning.

When all the apples are chopped, take them out of the water and put them in a saucepan. Add some water to the bottom of the pan to prevent the apples sticking – depending on the variety of apple you may need more or less water. Add 2 oz sugar to sweeten the apples. Cook the apples on a medium heat until soft.

I then mash the apples using a potato masher. You can leave them in soft chunks if you prefer. Put the apples in a baking dish.

For this particular dish I used 15 ounces of cooked pureed apples that I had prepared from the apples on my fruit trees and frozen earlier this year.

While the apples are cooking you can prepare the crumble. In a basin put equal quantities (2 oz each) of porridge oats, self raising flour and chopped hard butter. You will also need to add sugar – I use half the quantity of sugar to the other ingredients as I do not like the crumble too sweet.

Oats, flour, sugar and butter for the crumble

Rub the butter into the other ingredients rolling it between your thumbs and fingers until the whole mix is like large bread crumbs.

Sprinkle the crumble mix on top of the apples and bake in a hot oven (190C) for fifteen to twenty minutes until the crumble is golden.

Nannie Crumble ready to eat — Cooked Nannie Crumble

Eat either hot or cold with custard or cream or ice cream.

My grandchildren like eating the crumble cold with custard. I place the crumble in the middle of a dish making an island with the custard. Sometimes I add swishes of custard around the crumble so that it is a flower with custard petals. How do you like to eat it?

Enjoy!