Wanderlust: Fudge Kitchen Experience

On our final day in Edinburgh we went for a Fudge Making Experience at Fudge Kitchen in Edinburgh with the lovely manager Will & his assistant Bradley!

Being a total sweet tooth I knew I wanted to do this when we visited Edinburgh since I first added it to my Pintrest list years ago! :) We don't have a fudge kitchen locally to us (the nearest is in Canterbury, Kent) so it made sense to go to the Royal Mile shop in Edinburgh whilst we were there so we donned our aprons and got making some fudge!

Will has been working at Fudge Kitchen for over 17 years and was a total pro and helped us quite abit with the makingness as its actually pretty hard work making the fudge - need alot of upper arm strength  for all the mixing! He was really knowledgeable about the history of fudge and was really funny.

We started by heating the secret ingredients for a toffee fudge in a large brass cauldron on a fire stiring away until the mixture had reached the right temperature (200 something degrees if I'm remembering right??)  and then we poured it on to a huge marble table to cool between a frame to keep all the mixture on the table. Then we then ate some fudge that Will had made earlier and waited for it to cool down and set a little.

We used these long shovel like things (imagine a snooker cue with a shovel on the end of it) to mix everything again until the mixture became a lighter colour (images from the Fudge Kitchen above show the process)


By this time the fudge was starting to set so we shaped it with some smaller shovel things to get it in to a long rectangular shape ready to cut.

Cutting the fudge was actually the hardest part! I was terrible at it, Rich was slightly better :) After we cut off 6 nice big slices we popped these in a box and kept these. As part of the experience we also were allowed to pick 6 of the fudge blocks we wanted behind the counter. We chose Eton Mess, Lemon Meringue Pie, Rum & Raisin, Double Chocolate, Chocolate & Vanilla Swirl, and Chocolate Orange.

I also ended up picking up the Fudge home making kit so I might have a play with this again at Easter time whilst we are off and the hot drinking fudge :)

After our great time at Fudge Kitchen we got the tram & hopped on our plane back down south. Can't wait to go back to Edinburgh again , will def do one of the Ness bus tours again and maybe be daring enough to go in the Edinburgh dungeon!

Love , Sarah x

Wanderlust: 4 Days in Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle in the rain!

 So, I'm back from my trip to Edinburgh! Is such a nice place to visit, We've already got stuff planned to do for when we next go back. Would also recommend going in March, we had one rainy day when we arrived and then for the rest of the week was clear skies or just abit cloudy! Sadly didn't get around to any OOTD pics :( will post up these another time. 

Here's what we did: 

Thursday

We got a super early flight from Gatwick and arrived in Edinburgh at about half 9 in the morning. We checked in to our b&b (which was lovely btw!) the Haymarket Hotel. As the name suggests its not as central as many of the other larger hotels or chain but was only a 20 min walk from everything central. That and it was also quieter there at night so I wasn't woken by the traffic or clubs as we have been in the past when booking city breaks which was a great bonus! :) 

We were upgraded to a family room for free which had a four poster bed <3 Everyone was really friendly and welcoming and it was the perfect place to stay! 

The Haymarket Hotel, Edinburgh

In the afternoon it started raining really bad but we still wanted to get out and explore. We climbed up to the castle and had a little look around. didn't go in though, in hindsight we pro should of done to escape the rain! 

Edinburgh Castle - sorry about the yellow fuzz in this pic and some others. turns out fluffy phone cases have their downsides!

Highland Cattle Cow in one of the Shops!

From there we were around the main city centre and a few of the shops and then went down to TigerLilly which is a cocktail bar/ restaurant one of my colleague had recommended. Everything in there is really pretty and pink- must get a lot of hen dos and girls night outs! Food was excellent, I had a starter of the Gnocchi which was lovely - could easily eaten a whole bowl of this before mains but it is very filling! 

For main I had the Three Little Pigs which is braised pigs cheek & crispy pork belly, ham hock & smoked cheddar croquette with pickled cabbage & quince. All delicious! Desert was the warm chocolate fondant with Ice cream. Again I apologise for my lack of pics of this but I was too hungry and didn't realise I had no pics till I 'd eaten it all! .  

Tiger lilly Edinburgh

Tiger lilly Edinburgh - before dinner arrived!

Edinburgh Castle lit up at night

Friday

On Friday the rain finally stopped and we went out to Edinburgh Zoo. This again is really easy to get to, only about 5 mins on a bus from Haymarket station just outside the B&B. 

The main attraction for Edinburgh Zoo is the pandas Tian Tian & Yang Guang. They happened to have just had lunch and were snoozing when we saw them but they were cute none the less! :) Yep, The pandas are apparently comfortable sleeping like this!

My fave animals in Edinburgh Zoo were the Koalas. They've always been a fave of mine. 

In the evening we headed back to the city centre in search of some Haggis! I've had haggis a couple o times at home before and really like it so we went looking for a nice cosy scottish historic pub to have dinner in and came across The Last Drop in the Grassmarket area, behind the castle. which is a street lined with old pubs and cool things to look at. 

Haggis, Neeps &Tatties! 

On Saturday and Sunday we did a couple of the bigger activities which I will blog about later this week as they def deserve there own blog posts! We went to Loch Ness on Saturday and on Sunday we had a experience day with Fudge Kitchen! :) Will leave you with the rest of my pics from around Edinburgh though, enjoy! :) 

Love Sarah x 

The Scott Monument

View from the top of Castle mount

Bagpipe man on the Royal Mile

The Royal Mile

funny pub signs in Grassmarket

The Royal Mile

x