If you've never had proper Scottish tablet, ye haven't lived. It's like fudge's more intense, sweeter, slightly grainy cousin โ€” and it requires constant stirring for the best part of an hour. Ma arm was minced after the last batch.

Enter: the TinkerBot Stirrer Mark I.

The Problem

Traditional tablet needs stirred almost constantly once ye get tae the boiling stage, or it crystallises wrong. An hour of that is brutal. So I built a stirrer.

The Build

I salvaged a wee DC motor from an old printer, 3D printed a paddle attachment, and mounted the whole thing over ma pot using a bit of aluminium bar I had knocking about. An Arduino Nano controls the speed via PWM โ€” I wanted variable speed so I could slow it down in the early stages.

Temperature monitoring via a DS18B20 waterproof probe (food-safe silicone coated) lets the Arduino adjust stir speed automatically as the temp rises. Pure class.

Gran's Tablet Recipe

900g sugar, 115g butter, 150ml full-fat milk, 397g condensed milk. Melt the butter and milk, add the sugar, bring tae the boil, add condensed milk, boil tae 115ยฐC stirring constantly (or let the robot dae it), then beat off the heat until thick and pour intae a greased tin. Simple as. The TinkerBot handles the boring bit.