Best of British - The Scottish Round Up

Loch Tay from Kenmore

When the sun shines, Scotland is one of the most stunning places you could ever visit.  Glorious hills, lochs and coastal villages.  There is also a rich heritage and culture to enjoy.

Pittenweem Harbour

We also have some incredible produce, beef, lamb, seafood, milk, cheese, butter cream and glorious raspberries, strawberries and blackcurrants.

Langoustines

Blackcurrants

We are lucky that New World Appliances as proud BRITISH manufacturers of kitchen appliances are sponsoring this event for the first six months.  Each month, one entrant will be picked AT RANDOM to receive a £50 Amazon voucher.  And, at the end of the six month period we will have a regional showdown, with a judge to pick the best entry (we are still working on who that will be and should be able to announce it shortly).  New World Appliances have kindly offered £300 of Amazon vouchers for the overall winner, so if you enter every month you have 6 chances to win the grand prize!


Thank you to all the lovely food bloggers who entered the Scottish challenge for Best of British in partnership with New World Appliances , it was fun to read about what Scottish food means to you and see the delicious meals that you made.  Fiona will also be blogging the round up at the Face of New World blog 'A Whole New World', in the next few days.

1. First past the post was Chris Halfmann from 'Cooking Around the World' with his Scottish Whisky Cake and remember, the whisky is supposed to go IN the cake!

2. Next up is this fantastic Pork and Haggis Meatloaf with Honey Mustard and Whisky Apples from Claire at Under the Blue Gum Tree. Claire is based in South Africa and really impressed me sourcing haggis from local butcher with Scottish roots!

Skirlie

Selkirk Bannock

3.  Jill from Lapin d'Or and More wrote a lovely post telling about her time cooking at a shooting lodge in Tomintoul and a bit about Catherine Brown, author of  Scottish Regional Recipes, the book the recipes for Skirlie and the Selkirk Bannock came from.

4. Ros at The More Occassional Baker  consulted her Scottish friends who suggested she make one of the most difficult, but total delicious, Scottish sweets - TABLET!  Tablet is notoriously difficult to get right and although Ros felt hers was a bit on the soft side, it tasted just right, mmmmm I love tablet.

5.  Scottish Mum brings us Traditional Scottish Oatcakes a quick and simple biscuit (cracker) and a great accompaniment to stovies, corned beef hash, or any slow cooked meal, stew or stroganoff.  In fact that reminded me that as children, we used to crumble them into any gravy left on the plate, usually from mince, totally delicious!

6. Jacqueline of How to be a Gourmand made me laugh with her quote from Billy Connolly “There are two seasons in Scotland – Winter and July” although I have to say that this year, it would be hard to tell them apart!  Jacqueline chose Scottish Raspberries and made this lovely looking Scottish Raspberry and Pinenut Bake.

7. Caroline of Caroline Makes decided to recreate a Scottish tea time favourite, 'Tunnocks Teacakes' using some Marshmallow Fluff she had found at a bargain price and was happy enough with the results that she plans to make them again and may even make her own marshmallow next time.

 My own entry is an Iced Cranachan with Raspberries.  Cranachan contains cream, honey, oatmeal and whisky.  I used these ingredients to make an icecream and froze it into little moulds just to make it look more cheffy! 

8. Karen at Lavender and Lovage brings us some traditional Scottish baking, not in the oven but on the girdle, as we call it in Scotland, with her Scotch Griddle Cakes with Heather Honey .  These were probably the first thing I ever baked, standing on a stool at my granny's cooker, dropping spoonfuls onto the girdle and the eating them warm and dripping with butter.

9. It's breakfast time and time for Tattie Scones at the home of Tinned Tomatoes blogger, Jac!  Jac says "These are traditional potato scones, made in Scotland. A simple scone made from mashed potato, flour and butter. Once cooked they can be kept in the fridge and re-heated in a toaster or under a grill."

 

10. Back to the sweet stuff with traditional shortbread with a twist: this is Chocolate Scottish Shortbread from Janine at Cake of the Week and it come highly recommended!

11. Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog used the challenge as an opportunity to make Cranachan, she says  "It's been on my list of things to make for years AND I wasn't going to miss this opportunity to give it a whirl. For the uninitiated cranachan is a traditional Scottish celebration dish consisting of oatmeal, whipped cream, honey & whisky and sometimes raspberries."  It looks great and, of course, as it was from Choclette, it includes some sprinkles of white chocolate!

12. Caroline from Cake, Crumbs and Cooking is a big fan of Scottish Cook, Sue Lawrence, and chose to make Treacle Scones and Parlies.  Here's a photo of the Treacle Scones but you will have to visit Caroline's blog to exactly what the Parlies might be!

13. And so back to breakfast again, you would think that we Scots ate nothing but breakfast and tea, although those are some of our best meals.  Fiona of London Unattached is the instigator of the Best of British Challenge with help from Karen at Lavender and Lovage and a few co-conspirators hosting the regions.  Inspired by childhood memories of her Scottish aunts, Fiona chose to make a breakfast dish of Kippers and Oatcakes.

14. And so we come round full circle with a Whisky and Honey Cake from Gloria's Canela Kitchen.  A lovely confection of whisky, honey and almonds.

And the WINNER, chosen by Random Number Generator, is......drum roll please..........................

#1 Chris Halfmann with his Scottish Whisky Cake

Congratulations to Chris and commisserations to all the other entrants. Thank you so much for entering Best of British, Scotland, I hope you enjoyed it and are ready to move south to beautiful and diverse Yorkshire, where Karen of Lavender and Lovage is waiting to welcome you to the next Best of British challenge.

Late Entry:

Hungry Hinny contacted me to say she had posted very late last night and unfortunately didn't make the round up.  However, I'm popping her entry on the end here as like Ros she attempted to make Scottish Tablet.  She admits that the addition of raspberries was probably a mistake but it certainly looks pretty!