Pat Rainbow has a name that lights up a smile, and her pot of gold is the homemade shortbread she bakes from a neighbour’s wartime notebook.
Shortbread has become her hallmark over the years, and she says the secret is the pound of butter that goes into each batch of roughly 66 pieces. This year, the 86-year-old baked several batches of the buttery Scottish biscuit for the Arvida Oakwood’s Christmas market, where they disappeared quickly.
“When I was still living with Mum and Dad, a neighbour passed over her war-time notebook with everything in it – even how to make a thermos flask out of a bottle wrapped in paper. I gave the notebook back to the neighbour’s daughter because I thought it had historical value, but I did write down the shortbread recipe.
“I haven’t had a flop yet – touch wood!”
Pat and her 92-year-old husband Laurie live in a villa at the retirement village and she jokes it was his Rainbow surname that first attracted her.
“That’s why I married him; it’s such a lovely name. It goes back to the 1700s.”
But it’s the shortbread that lured people to her market stall. A traditional Christmas treat, it has become Pat’s signature bake all year round, handed out to others to enjoy.
“Why I bake it is because my mum would hear about somebody in trouble and put on a pot of soup, make Louise cake and peanut cookies, put them in a basket on the front of her bike and off she would cycle to give it to them to help with a meal. And I guess that’s rubbed off on me. That’s the joy of it – giving it away.”
The moment she turns her back on the oven, the shortbread darkens - but then children enjoy it even more.
“Sometimes I’ve left them in the oven a bit long and they go a bit brown and don’t look so good. So, I put chocolate icing on and those are the ones the kids go for first.”
At home, if the cake tins are getting short of shortbread, it’s baking day to bake another batch.
“If the tins are getting a bit empty, I make it.”
How soon the next batch appears depends on how much shortbread she’s given away.
