Scottish tablet is a type of traditional hard, very sweet fudge that anyone from Scotland will have grown up with – we all had a granny or auntie that would produce a home-made bag at Christmas or during visits. My Aunt Isobel would bring us each a bag full at Christmas, and I’d always finish mine then move on to stealing bits from everyone else! There are recipes for Scottish tablet that go back to the early 18th century, using sugar and cream, and you’ll find tablet in most Scottish sweet shops.
Luckily it’s very easy to make tablet vegan by swapping the milk for plant milk and the condensed milk for condensed coconut milk.
The key to tablet is getting the temperature right. It has to reach a temperature of 120C/soft ball on a sugar thermometer. You need to hold your nerve and keep stirring until it gets to that point or you’ll end up with much softer fudge, or toffee. If you don’t have a sugar thermometer I’d recommend getting one, as they’re so useful for making fudge, jam and tablet. If you aren’t able to get hold of one, you can use the ball method, detailed below.
Ingredients
- 920 g caster sugar
- 200g plant milk
- 60g plant based butter
- 170 g condensed milk (we used Biona)
- 1 tsp peppermint essence
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 1 tbsp cocoa
- 6 candy canes, bashed into pieces (put them in a bag and hit them hard!)
Method
Prepare a square baking tin to pour your tablet into.
Put all of the ingredients except the candy canes into a pot and melt them together on the hob over a low heat. Once everything is dissolved, increase the heat.
Stir the mixture continuously until it reaches 120C on your sugar thermometer, or until it is boiling and a small spoonfulled ball of it dropped into a cup of cold water keeps it shape.
Turn down the heat and wait a minute for the mixture to settle, then stir vigorously for a few minutes until it is almost setting. Pour into the baking tin and score lightly with a knife both ways so it is easier to cut later, then pour the candy cane over it!
If you like this, try our vegan mince pie puffs.