Recipe book offers great food ideas and a chance to help Paisley’s top tourist attraction

Dec 6 2010 by Cameron Hay, Paisley Daily Express

A GROUP of culinary wizards at Paisley’s Sma’ Shot Cottages tourist attraction have cooked up a brilliant little recipe book to help raise cash for a new roof.

Volunteers hope Buddies will cook up a storm this winter and impress friends and family with a selection of starters, mains and desserts from the pamphlet.

It was put together by Ann Milne, 63, and friends at the town centre attraction to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the complex’s opening.

In September last year, the team sent out an SOS – Save Our Sarking – appeal because £25,000 is needed over the next few years to help save the crumbling roof and keep the place watertight.

Experienced architect Duncan Adam, who offered his services to the organisation for free, found that the old horse hair sarking – which is under the shingles for support – could have been there for up to 100 years and has no waterproofing.

Ann, left, who has been a volunteer for more than 20 years, said the Cottages’ kitchen makes many of the dishes and she revealed that some of the recipes in the booklet have proved a hit with royalty.

She explained: “Prince Charles and Camilla have been here before and tried some of the recipes in the book – with tablet and shortbread being their favourites.

“Most of the ones I’ve put in are not too difficult to make. In fact I think they are all quite simple. None of them are expensive to make either – although one or two may cost a bit more than the others – and are ideal for anyone on a budget.”

Grandmother-of-two Ann told the Paisley Daily Express she picked up the baking bug from her mother Nan when she was a little girl and has continued it on throughout her life.

The former Bank of Scotland manager Ann added: “I’ve been baking all my life as my mum baked. It just came naturally.

“I don’t know where I got the recipe for the carrot cake – perhaps out of a magazine a long time ago – but it is something I’ve made for many a year as it is my daughter Lesley’s favourite.

“I really enjoyed putting the book together. We’re hoping to sell as many of the books as possible as we are trying to raise funds for the roof repairs.”

Visitors to the Sma’ Shot Cottages are given the chance to experience two different periods of Paisley’s weaving history.

From Shuttle Street, visitors enter the Weaver’s Cottage and are transported back in time by nearly 250 years.

And, after checking out what life was like in the 1700s, they are able to cross the courtyard and fast-forward 70 years to see how people lived in the early to mid-1800s in a row of three cottages.

Ellen Farmer, President of the Old Paisley Society which runs the cottages, added: “We have done similar things in the past and found it to be very successful.

“People who come into the Cottages often ask about the recipes for our cakes, soup and much more. So we are hoping that this will prove to be quite a good fundraiser for us again.”

Grandmother Mary Reid has been a regular at the cottages since they opened and has been working in the gift shop for the past eight years.

“A lot more people are in to cooking these days, be it men or women. Something like this could make a nice stocking-filler for Christmas as it is full of contributions from Paisley people and the money raised will help to preserve an important historical part of the town,” she said.

The Old Paisley Society bought the cottages in 1983 from Paisley Technical College for £2,000 and then set about restoring the historic buildings to their former glory. The complex closed on Wednesday, November 24 for winter.

You can buy the recipe booklet, which costs £2.50, at Abbey Books, 2 Well Street, Paisley.