Cunningham Tablet

Will and I had an idea for Christmas.

We would make his favorite candy: Scottish Tablet, a vanilla-fudgey-grainly- sweet confection. His mother had given us a recipe a few years ago, but she had never tried so she was not sure about it.  We used it as inspiration, found some coberating recipes online, and then tried our hand at it.

First, this is not for the diabetics out there.  And if you aren't one when you begin making Tablet, you will be when you finish making it-- especially if you make as much as we did.  Each batch takes:

• one stick of butter
• one can of condensed milk
• 911 grams (or 5.5 cups) of caster sugar
• 1/2 cup of whole milk
• 1/2 cup of heavy cream
• teeny-tiny amount of vanilla, like 4 or 5 drops

I substituted the whole milk and heavy cream for just one cup of 2% milk, so I had a low-fat version.  Wink, wink.  I can tell you that 911 grams of sugar is A LOT of sugar.  And when I doubled the recipe, seeing 1822 grams of sugar was mind blowing.  

You mix the butter, milk, and sugar together, slowly bringing it to a boil and stirring constantly.  And I do mean bring to a boil s-l-o-w-l-y. It is best to cook the mixture on a medium-to-law heat.  Once the mixture has boiled, you then pour in the condensed milk.  The mixture needs to boil again and reach the temperature of 240ºF, or the soft ball stage of candy making.  You need to stir it occasionally, watch the mixture until it gets to the right temperature as well as nice deep golden color. 

After it reaches the right temperature and color, remove the pot from heat and the fun begins: a constant, quick, repetitive stirring for at least 10 minutes.  On the final batch, I finally broke out the hand mixer with the whisk attachment.  The key to Tablet is mixing in the air.  The air makes the sugar crystallize, the key difference between fudge and Tablet.  When you see the mixture gritting onto the sides of the pan, and you can feel the grit when you taste it (and you should be tasting this as you go along, it is really delicious), then you then pour it out into a greased pan. 

 

It will start to cool as you stir in the pot, and after the 10 minutes of whipping it followed by pouring into the pan, the tablet cools even quicker.  Let it rest in the pan for a bit and then you can score it to make it easier to take out of the pan.  

Once it is out and cool, the pieces will be grainy and crumbly and taste like vanilla and a sugar cube had a baby, which is almost the case.   

After 7 batches (4 of which were doubled and one of which failed when we didn't stir it enough; and don't even think about how many pounds of sugar that is), we are pretty much pros at making Tablet and yet I still failed to take a photo of the finished product.  Instead, you will have to imagine the small bricks of candy, sitting in Christmas tissue paper, in the decorative tins, sealed with ribbon and a homemade label featuring the Cunningham Tartan. 

 

The Haul

Will has returned from Scotland and England after two weeks away. Though he had one small suit checked and a backpack as a carry-on, he managed to carry all of this back.

Old photos, clothing, books, a serving tray, candy, chocolate, biscuits, biscuits in commemorative tins for the London Olympics, biscuits in commemorative tins for the Golden Jubilee, a coaster, biscuits in musical tins, plates, tea, coffee, jelly beans, t-shirts, keychain, Scotland local soft drink Iron Bru, magazines, team pennants, my birthday presents, pickle, creamed rice puddings, tea towels, tea cakes, jammie dodgers, tea mini trifle cakes, a pint glass, a coffee mug, and a Winnie the Pooh pencil sharpener.

Some is from shopping around Edinburgh (a pleasure visit) or Birmingham (a work trip); some from his home; the majority from getting to the airport too early before a flight.  Ah, duty-free.

This is just the table:  You should see the 'chocolate drawer' we now have in the fridge. Ahem.

Taste of Scotland

After the rugby (below) we went local for dinner. A lovely haggis from the butcher at western corner. Sadly these beauties can't be imported into the states (since 1971 they've had a problem with one of the ingredients - sheep's lung) however I think I will have a go at perfecting our own recipe once I get back. Any takers...?

My visit coincided with an important rugby match. Edinburgh were up against Toulouse in the Heineken Cup.  So mum and I decided to tootle over for a look. The stadium was busy with 37k in attendance and fortunately there was space for us. We enjoyed a thrilling match against one of rugby's heavyweights and Edinburgh pulled off a famous victory!

Murrayfield has changed a bit since I last took in a match there but the home of scottish rugby is a terrific venue with a great atmosphere. Hopefully I'll get around to seeing an international there sometime.

Match article - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/17639378

Edinburgh moment

I've had the pleasure of spending the past couple of days in Edinburgh. The city is stunning, as always, and if you haven't been, get here - even on a grey day.


The city is still dealing with the building of the trolly system. So far it's been a lot of money with minimal result.....Princess street below is totally dug up and only passable by foot. Locals seem skeptical of the entire project - we'll see...



Sylvia and Edward have been busy in the garden and we're now enjoying the news and golf on a quiet Saturday night. The house as lovely as ever.

Ah-ha! That Explains it!

But Baby, It's Cold Outside

With the cold weather that seems to never end (and some chance of snow tomorrow!!), I keep thinking about the  Penguins in the Edinburgh Zoo.  Daily they parade from one end of their exhibit to the other--only the ones that want to go, mind you-- and people line up to watch.  They are amazing and quite curious about us as we are of them.  I just don't get how they can be just fine in the freezing temperatures, including being able to swim!

If you listen to the keeper, you can learn all sorts of stuff about the king penguins who paraded for us.  You have to ignore the crying child in the foreground--though he was crying because he was quite cold.  I was crying on the inside...

The Royal Mile

It is Christmas in Edinburgh and on Christmas day, we decided that we wanted to walk the Royal Mile, from Edinburgh Castle down to Holyrood Palace. I have only been to Edinburgh during festival season and after one attempt of walking the mile with close 2 million other people, we avoided it. I wanted to see the castle without the standing for the Military Tattoo in front of the castle gates, and enjoy the view down the street, without getting hit for money or to see such-n-such play.

The snow was picking out all of the little details on the gates and the walls. There were surprisingly a lot of people also doing what we were doing.

The city itself was still covered with snow-- even though it hasn't snowed in several days. The view to the New City is blocked by construction (they are adding stands that will fold into the ground-- very hi-tech), so we looked out to the south of the city.

Towards Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crag to the south east, with the Grassmarket in the foreground.


We walked down the mile towards St. Giles, which was letting out its last service. We went in to see the renovations that had occurred, and the church was still warm from the masses. They had done some extensive work since we were last there, namely on refurbing the windows, which as just incredible.



Edinburgh is famous for those Closes and Wynds and some alleys. Most have stairs that lead down, revealing that the houses on the Royal Mile are really 5-6 storeys tall in the back. I am standing in Advocate's Close, where Lord Advocate Sir James Stewart lived from 1692-1713. The street was also home to Sir John Scougal, the royal painter for William III and Queen Mary.

After about a 30 minute stroll down the hill, but not quite to the palace, we were frozen enough and couldn't feel our toes. We turned back to walk up the hill and went home to enjoy a nice cup of tea and some Stilton.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone! We woke up to the most enormous stocking I have ever seen!

Full of balloons, crackers, presents, and these:


A gag gift that goes back and forth and back-- this is at least the 12th time Will has received it in his stocking. It was a quiet celebration otherwise: a walk, a few more exchanged gifts, and then dinner in the dining room.

Sylvia made a goose and it has fantastic! She consulted not only Julia Child but her brother Tony and her friend Patty. Turns out, she had never made a goose before, but it is very similar to chicken in the cooking part. Go figure.

And after dinner, comes the Christmas Cake, otherwise known as fruit cake. The icing is marvelous-- a bit of lemon. The cake, well, is fruit cake. So, I am not a fan, but I did try a piece. Sylvia noted that this one was a rather young cake-- she only made it 6 weeks ago and it really hadn't had time to cure. But the decorations on top were very sweet: the Holy Family and then some Christmas Spirits. The Christmas Spirits were from Sylvia's childhood and she remembers them being on the Christmas cakes every year.

Hoping that you and yours have a wonderful Christmas!

The Tree is Ready

We decorated the tree and now we just need Santa!
We were instructed that every single ornament had to go on the tree, as they hadn't seen the light of day for at least 5 years since Edward & Sylvia were usually traveling over Christmas--either to London or to the States. Will and I managed to do it-- but it took some doing. The tree itself is about 10 feet tall and there was one container that was reflective balls no bigger than a penny. Ahem. Will and I placed some sort of bauble on every branch-- sometimes more than one. We feel a bit guilty as Edward will have to remove them all when the tree is taken down on January 6th. But at least we refrained from adding tinsel.

Christmas Oysters

All for me... okay, I shared. It is the season for giving, after all.

Edinburgh Zoo's Penguins

We went to the Edinburgh Zoo today. Yes, to the zoo, even though it was about 5 degrees outside. (I have no idea what that means in Fahrenheit.) But the zoo was lovely with the snow. Several animals were (rightly) tucked inside their shelters, but not the zoo's signature animal: the penguin.

The zoo itself is rather young: opened in only 1917. It isn't very big and so a decision was made at some point to focus on endangered species, rather than a menagerie of creatures--hence no giraffes or elephants.
Apparently, it is also Scotland's second most tourist attraction, after Edinburgh Castle.

The best part of the zoo is its penguins. They have more than 210! The majority are the gentoo (the typical black and white ones), but they have 10 king penguins--distinguishable by the yellow on their chests and heads, though they are about 20 cm shorter than the emperor penguins, and the rockhoppers--the smaller ones with fluffy. yellow eyebrows.




The exhibit itself is quite something: you have plenty of ways to see the penguins swimming, resting, walking, diving, underwater, and at eye level.

And of course at 2:15 pm every day, there is the Penguin Parade! Every day at the appointed time, the keepers open a gate and see how many penguins are going out for a walk. Sometimes it is the whole lot of them, and sometimes it is only one.

We had all ten king penguins parading today. It was quite something. They waddled and called their way down the path, from the one door to the other. Some even stopped to pose for photos.

Bringing up the rear of the parade was Sir Nils Olav, the honorary colonel-in-chief of the Kings Guard in the Norwegian army. He is this particular unit's mascot. He started off as a corporal and when the Norwegian army would visit for the Military Tattoo in August every few years, Nils would be promoted. In 2008, he was knighted-- the only knight in Norway! The zoo itself has a long history with Norway as that country was the first to present the zoo with the gift of king penguins.

Sir Nils was kind enough to pose with Will after the parade, but no autographs, as that would be undignified.

Drive to Edinburgh

We made the drive! All the doubters out there saying that it shouldn't be done! The trains were the better choice! Why are we risking life and limb in terrible weather! And yes, I admit, I was one of the doubters.

But the roads were clear and no snow came down. We were able to get to Edinburgh from London in about 7 hours, with minimum stops, including one to unfreeze the windshield sprayers.

And what awaited us? A lovely stone house with a snowy garden and icicles dangling from the front gutter. It is going to be a white Christmas here, folks.