Sweetie Cookies

It's such a long time since I baked any cookies, my cooker was disconnected at the end of January, and although I've had it back now for about a week and half I haven't had a chance to bake anything.  I took delivery of some Hot Cross Fudge from Wee Sweetie and in the carrier bag alongside my order were some samples of other sweets to try, what a bonus!

I found some Nutterly Buttery Fudge, Creme de Menthe Fudge and some Bacon Praline as well as some Lime and Berry boiled sweets.  They were all lovely to eat as sweets, but I thought they would also work well as a topping for a plain cookie, and I was right.  They might not be the prettiest cookies but they are very easy to make and taste delicious, you could top these cookies with nuts, chocolate or anything that takes your fancy.

Sweetie Cookies (makes 24-30)
100g margarine or butter
100g caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
225g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Toppings of your choice

Heat the oven to 180C/Gas 4.  Cover two or three baking sheets with parchment paper.

Cream the margarine or butter with the sugar and then add the remaining ingredients  until they form a soft dough.  Roll the dough into a sausage and wrap in clingfilm, put this in the fridge to chill for 15 minutes.

Slice rounds from the roll and place, evenly spaced, on to the baking sheets. Add the toppings and bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes until pale golden brown and crisp.  Don't allow them to get too brown.

Lift off and leave to cool on a wire rack.

The dough is very soft, so the cookies are not exactly round!  The sticky looking cookies are the ones topped with bacon praline, I was a bit worried that they might be too bacony, but no, the praline sweetness totally compensated.  I had to use my grill pan rack to cool the cookies as my cooling trays are still in storage, it's amazing what you can use when you have to!

Labels: Bacon Praline, cookies, fudge, Sweeties, Sweets, Wee Sweetie

posted by Janice @ 20:53 18 Comments

Wee Sweetie - Homemade Sweets and Candies

Clockwise from left: Hot Cross Bun Fudge, Caramel Swirls, American Buttermints, Roobarb and Custard.

My Granny used to ask me "would you like a wee sweetie?"  She always had a bag of, what she called, 'boilings' in her handbag, a bit like the Scottish equivalent of that old guy on the telly with his 'originals' feeding sweets to his granddaughter!
This particular 'Wee Sweetie' is Donna Bradley,  @Wee_Sweetie on Twitter, who makes delicious traditional sweets.  Donna's Papa always called her Wee Sweetie, at 5'2" and 7 stone she is still quite 'wee' and has a real sweet tooth.

Donna is a self proclaimed 'Doonhamer' born and bred in Dumfries in the South West of Scotland.  When she had to give up her career as a psychiatric nurse, specialising in forensics, after illness and injury she returned home to stay with her Mum.  Donna has Crohn's Disease, a chronic digestive disorder and sugar is about the only thing she can eat without pain.  She got fed up with the lack of variety and quality of the sweets available to her and was thrilled when her sister bought her Hope and Greenwood's 'Life is Sweet' and she was able to make her own sweets.

The reaction to Donna's sweets, amongst her family and friends,  was so positive that she soon started taking custom orders for gifts, weddings and parties.  Wherever possible  Donna uses local products including Uncle Roy's colours and extracts and Lockerbie butter. She is looking for someone local to buy cream and would love to find an artisan butter maker. Wee Sweetie sweets are made in small batches to ensure the sweets are as fresh as can be and Donna aims to make them look and feel handmade, not uniform and mass-produced. She doesn't believe in adding anything unnecessarily so make sure everything is completely natural, preservative and additive free. Most are gluten free and veggie friendly too.

Donna kindly sent me some of her Wee Sweeties to try.  Let's start with the Hot Cross Bun Fudge, what a brilliant concept!  The fudge really tastes like a Hot Cross Bun and would be a perfect Easter Gift.   I was a bit concerned to try the Caramel Swirls as I thought they might be hard and chewy, but far from it, they transported me back to my childhood as they tasted exactly like the Russian Toffee my Mum made.  Soft and with a rich, sweet burnt sugar flavour that was completely moreish.  American Buttermints were next on the tasting list, they have a real hit of mint, firm on the outside and meltingly soft on the inside, quite delightful.  And finally 'the boilings' Roobarb and Custard boiled sweets were just brilliant, the balance of the acidic rhubarb taste and the sweet custard make these sweets just burst with flavour on your tongue.

Wee Sweetie is a very new business and does not yet have it's own website.  I'll keep you updated when that goes live.  In the meantime if you like the sound of these delicious homemade sweets you can contact Donna using the contact details at the bottom of the price list pictured above.

Many thanks to Donna for the opportunity to review her delicious sweeties, I'll be ordering up some of that Hot Cross Bun Fudge for Easter!
I was not paid for this post and all opinions are my own. 

Labels: boiled sweets, buttermints, candy, caramels, fudge, homemade, hot cross bun, sugar, Sweets, Wee Sweetie

posted by Janice @ 19:06 35 Comments

Sweets

When we were on holiday (vacation) we visited the House of Bruar near Blair Athol, it is a very up market shopping centre and has a lovely food hall.  The abundance and colours of the sweets attracted my attention.




I didn't buy any of the brightly coloured sweets, but did buy a couple of boxes of tablet to take back to work colleagues.  Tablet is a Scottish sweet which is a bit like fudge but has a firmer texture.

Labels: House of Bruar, Sweets, Tablet

posted by Janice @ 22:26 2 Comments