Craft Baking | Threepwood Fayre
Sweet-making at home seems to be a memory from the childhood of many Scots, part of a long tradition which goes back even further than granny’s special-treat tablet. Turn to old Scottish cookbooks and you’ll find, as well as tablet, Scots barley sugar, butterscotch, and even Meg Dods’ recipe for Grandmamma’s bon-bons (if you look in F. Marian McNeil’s classic ‘The Scots Kitchen’).
Anne and John Dobbie were well aware of the Scots’ association with sweet-making when they set up Threepwood Fayre in 1989. Through her professional qualifications and experience in the catering industry, Anne was well aware of the enthusiasm the market had for sweets with that home-made wholesome flavour. Eventually working from a small unit adjacent to their farmhouse home, she started to create a range of traditional sweets which, while echoing the past, were also made with a thoroughly modern and uncompromising emphasis on quality in ingredients and preparation.
Recipes were developed, suppliers researched, packaging thought out and designed – and the result is that what happens today at Threepwood is the very opposite of mass produced confectionery. Every product in their range is still hand-made. A light sprinkling of nostalgia, along with a good measure of tradition, is added to that main ingredient – sheer quality.
Traditional tablet, along with macaroons, is one of the best-selling lines. And, incidentally, in Scotland, a macaroon, with its fondant core encased with chocolate and toasted coconut, is different from the almond-biscuit macaroon from south of the Border – but that’s all part of the folk-lore of confectionery in Scotland.
As artisan food producers, the Dobbies are staunch believers in the value of cooperative working – they are members of three cooperatives and enthusiastic supporters of the Ayrshire Food Network, and are conscious of their own role in making a positive contribution to the local economy. Threepwood Fayre supplies exclusive retail outlets, and you can buy the range on-line or at the farmers markets in west-central Scotland. And it’s at these markets in particular, with their own mix of locals and visitors, that it’s clear that the appeal of truffles and mints, fondant creams and fudge is simply irresistible to all, not just the Scots.
Confident in identifying their market, consistent in quality, and delivering a product that taps into tradition – that’s part of the secret of Threepwood Fayre. Besides, who could say no to properly-made tablet?