Lees' 12 Snowballs

Product Information

Clive Miquel, retiring chief executive of Lees, joined the business in 2004 and has been in charge for the last 14 years. Scottish snowballs are the perfect sweet treat, from their coating of pristine white coconut to their oozing strawberry jam in the centre. These snowball cakes are just perfect with a cup of tea and kids adore them too. Plus they are super easy to make. The inspiration for these snowball cakes Pull off pieces of dough about the size of a walnut and place on a lines baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes till golden. In doing so we had to decide whether or not snowballs have sufficient characteristics of what, an ordinary person, informed as we are, would consider to be a cake and we must give the word cake its ordinary meaning.

The town is famous for Lees Snowballs. Lees of Scotland was established in 1931 and is based in Coatbridge. The original products were Lees Macaroon Bars and Lees Snowballs but the product range has now extended. Scots are famous for having a sweet tooth and these were always treats for children and adults. The Snowball is a chocolate covered mallow sprinkled with coconut. The giant Snowballs sculptures are part of a project to memorialise the best of the town in a previously derelict area. Most people would want to enjoy a beverage of some sort whilst consuming it. It would often be eaten in a similar way to cakes; for example to celebrate a birthday in an office.

Trading took a dip towards the end of the decade and this led to the company seeing record losses in 1990 before being sold to Northumbrian Fine Foods a year later. Either will do and it’s personal preference to which you choose. I opt for margarine as a way to omit the dairy but whatever you choose, have it at room temperature before baking. But the tax tribunal concluded: ”It was not disputed that cakes are sweetened prepared food which is normally eaten with the fingers. He said: “When I did The Great British Menu one of my desserts was Eton Mess, which is obviously meringue, strawberries and cream. But as soon as you start introducing different textures and flavours, people start calling it deconstructed. We are wholly agreed that a snowball is a confection to be savoured, but not whilst walking around or, for example, in the street.

Near the end of the walk on the way to the Railway Station, I noticed an interesting two level bridge with the railway above and a footbridge below. It could be called a Marsupial bridge as the host is the railway bridge with the pedestrian walkway underneath. This is a B listed bridge built in 1898 and spanning various streets in the centre of the town and the former Monklands Canal. It underwent specialist restoration in 2009 along with other bridges to restore them to their former glory and help to extend the lifespan of the bridges for decades to come. The judges in the case were presented with a plate of Jaffa Cakes, Bakewell tarts, tea cakes, Waitrose meringues and Lees snowballs. The decision on which HMRC relied was Swedish Snowball Production Limited v The Commissioners of Customs and Excise.I would expect the tax to be exactly the same in relation to both of these things. This seems like a strange loophole to me.