When I first moved into my own place my parents made me promise two things: Firstly, that I wouldn’t get a deep fat fryer and secondly that I would never try to make tablet on my own. I was so terrified of exploding vats of milky sugar that I have heeded their request until now. By the way, I moved out twelve years ago so they really put the fear of God into me. For those of you who have never had the Scottish tablet experience, you’ve missed out! It is probably the sweetest thing you will ever eat but it is incredibly addictive. The closest thing I can compare it to is fudge but tablet has a much grainier texture.

Anyway, I signed up to the UK Craft swap on Craftster a few weeks ago and then was struck with complete panic over what to make. The premis of this swap was that we’d make something that reflected where we live and I was completely stuck for inspiration until I remembered how much I lurrrve tablet and so I gave it a go. My swap partner hasn’t received her parcel yet but I shall feed back what she thinks once she’s opened it.

I have to say that I’m raging I waited this long to try and make it because it was dead easy. So! Here I shall walk you through it. PLEASE don’t make this if there are kids around you, leave it until they’ve gone to bed. Also – in case I don’t remind you enough during the instructions do NOT stop stirring.

Ingredients
1kg white sugar (caster or granulated is fine)
120ml (1/2 cup) milk
100g unsalted butter
1 can (approx 400g) condensed milk (I found a non-Nestle version by a company called Farmlea in Sainsburys)

You will also need:
The largest pan you own (stock-pot kind of size)
a cup of cold water
a teaspoon
one square baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper
Wooden spoon

1. Make sure you have everything in the above list because if you have to stop stirring your tablet, you’ll ruin the whole lot and you’ll be furious at yourself. Trust me on this.
2. Put the sugar into the pan and pour the milk evenly over the top. Cut your butter into slices and put it in the pan with the condensed milk. Lick the condensed milk spoon (this stuff has 1300 calories per can. Relish it.) Turn the heat on the lowest setting and start stirring.
3. Once the sugar melts and the mixture becomes more liquid, turn the heat up to a medium level. Keep stirring until the mixture comes to the boil, making sure you regularly run the spoon around the bottom of the pan. You’ll notice that the mixture changes colour suddenly – keep stirring until you feel the mixture become more viscous. It took me about 45 minutes to get to this stage.
4. Turn the heat off, quickly take your teaspoon and scoop a little of the mixture out and dunk it into the cold water. You are looking for your mixture to ooze off the spoon slowly. If you feel it – carefully! it’s still hot! – it should be quite hard. Pour your tablet mixture into your pre-prepared lined tin.
5. Leave for 10-15 minutes then take a sharp knife and quickly mark your tablet into small bite-sized pieces. Leave your tablet to cool completely – or better still, overnight – before turning out of the pan and breaking up.
6. Give to anyone you wish to be your bestestest friend. Hide from the children.

Let me know how you get on if you make this!

Posted under cooking, swaps

I feel a bit of a cheat posting this recipe for banoffee pie because I’m sure I’m the last person in the world to make it, but it’s just so ridiculously easy that I feel it’s my duty to tell you all how to make it yourselves. As a word of warning this is so sweet that even I, the self-confessed Queen of the sweet toothed, only managed to eat a small slice before drinking a massive glass of milk.

I used the following in a 20cm loose-bottomed cake tin. For a bigger but shallower pie use a 24cm tin and double the hobnob base.

300g packet of chocolate hobnobs (digestives will do just as well)
Butter
2 x 397g can of condensed milk
4 bananas
Small carton double cream
Sprinkles, mini smarties or suchlike for the top

Firstly you’ll want to make your toffee. This can be done days in advance but the cans will need to have cooled before you start making the pie so at the very latest you’ll want to have finished boiling them a good few hours before making this.
To make your toffee, put the unopened unpierced cans of condensed milk into a big saucepan and cover them with cold water. Bring the water to the boil and leave for 4 hours, remembering to top the saucepan up with boiling water if the water level drops. It’s VERY important that the pan doesn’t boil dry as your cans could explode if this happens. Please be very conscious of this.

Put the packet of hobnobs into a food bag and batter it with a rolling pin until it looks a bit crushed. Pour the crumbs into a microwaveable mixing bowl and finish the job so your hob nobs are now a pile of crumbs. The bonus of making this with the chocolate hobnobs is that the chocolate should hold your mixture together pretty well when it’s melted so put 4-5 small knobs of butter around the top of your crumb mix and microwave for 20-30 seconds until the butter is soft and melting.
Mix the butter into the crumbs – you’re looking for your crumbs to be obviously wet but not swimming in grease. Tip the crumb mix into your tin and press down. Open your cans of condensed milk toffee, put them in a microwaveable dish and give it 20-30 seconds in the microwave to make the toffee a little easier to spread. Spoon the toffee over the top of the biscuit mix and smooth down. Put your tin into the fridge to let the biscuit and toffee set.

About half an hour before you want to eat your pie, slice up four bananas and layer the slices in rows. Whip your double cream until it’s thick and fluffy then carefully spoon across the top, smoothing it carefully so as not to disturb the banana layer. Finally, cover the top with your sprinkles/smarties/sweeties and you should end up with something like this:

This is so easy to make that it’s a great recipe for working with the kids as long as you do the toffee boiling part. Nairn helped me make this – well, I say helped. He stood beside me and licked the spoons! Let me know if you try it.

Posted under baking, recipes, with the kids