Not Quite Gordon Ramsay | How Not To Make Scottish Tablet

I have been contemplating making one of my all time favourite sweets for quite some time, good old Scottish Tablet. For some strange reason the stuff has been on my mind for weeks, no make that months. Things got so bad at the weekend that I even had a dream about it. When it reached that stage I knew I had to do something about my craven desire for Scottish Tablet.

If you have never tried Scottish tablet it is the sweetest candy that you could ever imagine, this stuff has got so much sugar in it and contains that many calories  it almost gives me a heart attack just thinking about it. Believe me it doesn’t get any sweeter than Scottish Tablet.

I cant even remember the last time I baked something. I’m telling a lie, the last time I tried my hand at baking was during a home economics class when I was at Secondary School way, way back in the early 1980′s. And from what I can remember that was a complete disaster. Not only did my blueberry muffins look like crap but they never tasted too good either.

Oh where to begin in my quest to make the perfect Scottish Tablet, just like my granny use to make all those years ago, when she was still alive, bless her dear soul. Never the less my sweet tooth had to be satisfied. Where to begin I thought I might as well start at the top. I emailed Gordon Ramsay and asked him if he would come round and show me how to make it, but the fucker never got back to me. Your off my Christmas card list now Gordon!

After a wee bit of searching with the help of the master of the universe Google, I eventually found an easy to follow and understand cooking video courtesy of STV and Heather Reid. Who needs Gordon Ramsay when you have Heather Reid! I would rather watch a cooking demonstration with her in it, any day of the week.

Everything seemed so simple that even I couldn’t get this wrong. I may not quite be Gordon Ramsay, but this was going to be a fucking dawdle. How could anything go wrong, Scottish Tablet only involves 4 ingredients – 800g sugar, 50g butter, half tin condensed milk, half cup whole milk. As Heather said, “it really couldn’t be easier, believe me it seemed easy but nothing is as ever as easy as it seems.

All I had to do was add all the ingredients to the pot and stir it, even I could manage that. I opened up the fridge and shouted out “fucking hell.” I was almost out of milk and it was 11.45pm. I quickly chucked on some clothes, my cooking outfit was a pair of boxer shorts and a rather fetching Pizza Express apron, which I received during the recent event I attended there. Eat your heart out Ramsay, you wish you looked this good in an apron.

I braved the undesirables that lurk along Kilburn High Road late at night and found the nearest shop and bought myself some milk. I was now ready  to make a Scottish candy that would even satisfy  the  sweetest tooth in the world. In fact if you ate this stuff too often at my age, I think I would have a heart attack before my teeth needed some more fillings. If that skinny hoe, Kate Moss had a wee piece of Scottish Tablet, she would put on half a stone in weight.

I was now back on track I had everything I needed….Well almost, I wouldn’t have minded Heather Reid being in my kitchen to give me a personal demonstration. But never mind I had the next best thing, which was her in the video making it look as easy it gets.

I chucked all the ingredients in the pot and all I had to do was stir non stop for the next 40 minutes or so and wolla the hard bit would be done. I will tell you this, it sure ain’t easy stirring for 40 minutes continuously. However all the hard effort would be worth it when I was munching on some delicious Scottish Tablet.

There was of course a good reason for the continuous stirring and as any cook would know, that was to stop the mixture from burning. The delightful Heather Reid had warned me to be very careful that it doesn’t burn and I was being real careful. Then in the blink of an eye it started to go slightly wrong. My African Princess was busy doing her project for her IT course and called out for me to come and help her with something in Photoshop, I was only gone 1 minute and a couple of little burnt bits had appeared. Fuck, fuck, fuck and fuck again was all I could say. I stirred the mixture with one hand, as I tried to fish out the little burnt bits with a tea spoon. Eat your heart out Gordon Ramsay, that’s what I call improvisation!

It seemed like I had managed to salvage things. I was back on track. After around 40 minutes of almost non stop stirring, I did the test with the mixture and cold water that was so skilfully demonstrated by Heather in the video. My Scottish Tablet was ready or was it, how hard did the mixture have to turn. Fuck this was confusing, was it hard enough or not. If only Gordon had been here, he would have known.

I took the mixture off the heat I thought it was ready, it seemed to be ready, it smelled delicious. I could honestly feel sharp shooting pains in my teeth just looking at it. All I had to do was find my parchment paper to line my baking tray. But I couldn’t find it. I ranted a bit thinking my African Princess had moved it. I then opened my eyes and realised it had fallen behind something.

I was like an excited kid again as I poured the mixture into the baking tray, my craving for Scottish Tablet would soon be satisfied. It was now around 1.30am and it would be ready around 2.30am. I was tempted to stay up and count the minutes down till it was ready but all this cooking lark had tired me out and I had to be up fairly early in the morning.

So how did my attempts at making the legendary Scottish Tablet turn out, well I can honestly say that it tasted nae too bad. It however wasn’t anywhere as good as my granny use to make it. I had a few pieces of Scotland’s calorie laden candy this morning and as good as it tasted, it was way too sweet for me. As I munched on it, I could feel my heart skipping a few beats and the prospect of getting some fillings at the dentist made me think that it maybe wasn’t such a good idea after all making this stuff……

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