It was Robert Burn’s 250 birth day last week. True he isn’t alive but us Scots like to keep his memory alive. The celebrations got me thinking about a treat my mum used to make called tablet. Most Canadians call it fudge but it isn’t fudge. Tablet is basically and excuse for eating pure sugar. You will not lose weight eating tablet!
Before you undertake to make tablet you must heed this: It takes time and you must be vigilent! It takes about an hour to make tablet or maybe a bit longer and it requires you to stir the pot the entire time. You can’t make it in a hurry or you will spoil it. Burnt tablet is not good.
One more warning: you are boiling sugar. It gets VERY hot. No matter how good the tablet tastes during the cooking DO NOT stick your finger in the mixture. The way my mum tested the tablet was to drop some in a glass or bowl of water. Kids will love the treat but keep them away from the stove. I can’t tell you how many times I did not heed this advice to my detriment.
Ingredients for Scottish Tablet
Tablet Ingredients
- 1kg white granulated sugar
- 1 tin (appx. 400g) sweetened condensed milk
- 100g unsalted butter (must be unsalted)
- 1 cup of milk (you can substitute water but why bother?)
- 1 teaspoon of vanila extract (optional)
- large pan, not non-stick
- big wooden spoon
- large shallow baking tray
Tablet Cooking Directions
- Grease the cookie sheet, do it now as you won’t have time when you need it
- Add the sugar to the pot and damp it down with the cup of milk
- Now add in the condensed milk and butter
- Bring the mixture to a boil on medium high heat
- Keep stirring, and don’t stop!
- Everything starts out white, over time it will turn a carmel color. It is this color that tells you when it is ready
- If you get dark patches you have burnt the mixture. You can tolerate a little of this but not much.
Scottish Tablet Color Change
- once the mixture boils, in about 10 mins, you can turn the heat down
- keep stirring
- watch for color changes
- after about 15 minutes on low heat the color change should be readily apparent
- somewhere around 20-30 minutes of stirring will get you close to cooked
- you are looking for that all important carmel color
- be careful not to burn it
- If you’ve had tablet before now is the time to taste it, if you haven’t already
- this is when I add the vanilla extract
- If the color has changed and the taste is right pour it in to the greased cookie sheet
Finished Scottish Tablet
- spread as evenly as you can
- once it’s set a little bit you can mark the top
- try marking one inch by one inch squares ( I tend to make my squares too big and regret it later)
- let the tablet cool, if you can wait that long
- put a tea towel over the cookie sheet and flip it upside down, hopefully the table will fall out
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