The 30th of November is St Andrew’s Day – the Patron Saint of Scotland, so I thought we could celebrate with a sweet treat.
I thought about sharing a recipe for Scottish Tablet, but to be honest, there are so many great recipes out there for tablet, I wouldn’t be sharing anything new. It’s also hard work to make – you have to beat it, hard, for a long time to get the required texture. This treat is much quicker and easier to make and is inspired by the much-loved Scottish sweet, with an added alcoholic kick, just what you need on a cold winters day. My Soft Scotch Sugar Sweets aren’t quite tablet, aren’t quite toffee, and certainly aren’t fudge, they’re somewhere in between. They’re super sweet, soft, crumbly, melt in the mouth and leaves behind a subtle, sweet, whiskey flavour on your tongue. Yum!
Scotland has, and always will, hold a large chunk of my heart. Edinburgh is my favourite city, out of all the cities I’ve visited, and as I lived on the Scottish/English boarder for almost 10 years, it just feels like home to me.
Scotland is a beautiful country, full of snow-capped mountains, rolling heather filled hills and cavernous lochs. Scottish people are some of the friendliest in the world, and know how to have a good time. Scotland is home to over 100 whiskey distilleries, and they party so hard at New Year (Hogmanay) that the 1st and 2nd of January are bank holidays in Scotland.
But back to St Andrew: Not much is known about him, other than he was one of Jesus’ 12 apostles and travelled the world spreading Christianity. He was also a martyr, and was due to be crucified on a cross, but elected to be executed on a Satire, an X shaped cross, instead; as he didn’t feel himself worthy of being crucified as Jesus was.
Here are 5 facts about Scotland:
(All images from Google)
1, Scotland sits at the very North of Great Britain and borders England. It’s comprised of a large area of mainland as well as over 900 islands which are split into five groups – the Inner Hebrides, the Outer Hebrides and Bute in the west, Orkney and Shetland in the north.
2, The Scottish flag is a white X (taking inspiration from St. Andrew’s death) on a blue background, called The Saltire. This makes up the four quarters of the Union Jack, the flag representing the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
3, Ireland’s national flower is Eryngium, commonly known as Thistle.
4, Before Scotland was under English rule, the country operated on a Clan System. Each clan held their own territory and was run by a Clan Chief. You could identify which clan a person belonged to by the colour and style of their tartan.
5, The national dishes of Scotland include Haggis (a mixture of offal, oats and spices, traditionally served in a sheep’s stomach – much tastier than it sounds), Cranachan (fresh raspberries and cream served with oats and whiskey), Tablet and Shortbread biscuits.
Ready in 20mins + cooling time.
Ingredients:
- 6 tablespoons of scotch whiskey
- 100g of golden syrup
- 450g of granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon of vinegar
- 50g of butter
- A pinch of salt
- A tablespoon of milk
Method:
- Grease and line a cake tin or dish.
- Put the whiskey and syrup in a large, heavy based pan over a medium heat.
- Once the syrup and whiskey is warm and liquid, add the sugar, vinegar, butter and salt.
- Heat slowly, mixing all the time until the butter is melted and all the sugar has dissolved.
- Add the milk, and stirring constantly, bring the mixture to the boil.
- Simmer gently for 10 mins.
- Once the mixture has turned golden, spoon a couple of drops into a cup of cold water. If you can form a ball with it with your fingers, it’s ready.
- Take it off the heat and keep stirring until the mixture stops bubbling, and then pour it straight into your tin and leave it to set.
- Once cool, tip the Sugar Sweets out of the tin, peel off the grease proof paper and cut into small pieces. They can be eaten now, but will be very crumbly, they’ll harden a bit more if left overnight.
Pesky Recipes 