Sam and Alan have all the right ingredients for a sweet success (From Worcester News)

Sam and Alan have all the right ingredients for a sweet success

9:51am Monday 15th October 2007 in Farmers' Markets

What do you get if you mix butter, sugar and milk? Answer - the ingredients for an excellent business idea.

These three simple ingredients for traditional fudge are the basis for Alan Gardiner's Sweet Temptations farmers' market stall, that he started running five years ago.

The business has been such a success that it's now a family firm, with wife Sam and daughter Janene, 21, all helping out.

Sam, 40, is involved with the labelling and accounts while Janene, a nursery nurse during the week, is stock controller and chief truffle maker at the weekend.

"She takes it very seriously and can really get quite bossy," said Sam.

Making confectionary is in Alan's blood. In his 20s, Alan worked with his dad, running old-fashioned fudge shops. Many of the recipes he uses today are based on his dad's recipes.

Alan then spent 14 years at a garden furniture and timber company, but five years ago he decided to do something creative and spend more time doing the things he wanted to do.

Sam said: "He just loves cooking and inventing new foods, so now he can do that for work and still have time for the other things he enjoys, travelling and walking."

Sweet Temptations sells fudge in 10 different flavours, some traditional, such as vanilla and rum and raisin, while others are more unusual. Sam's favourite is apple and cinnamon which she asked her husband to make especially for her.

"It tastes like apple pie and fudge together," she said.

Three other unusual flavours are ginger, liquorice and Baileys fudge.

The ingredients they use are all the kinds of things you have at home, such as sugar, condensed milk, evaporated milk, butter and free-range eggs.

The Gardiners buy their eggs and butter from other farmers' market stalls.

"We only use real milk, real butter, real rum and Baileys, no cheaper ingredients and no nasty things at all," said Sam. CAROLINE WRIGHT

Worcestershire Farmers' Market Dates:Worcester - Royal Worcester - November 4, from 10am to 2pm.

Bromsgrove - High Street - October 13, from 9am to 5pm.

Malvern - Abbey Road - October 20, from 9am to 2pm.

Worcester - St Peter's Garden Centre - October 27, from 9.30am to 2pm.