Maple Syrup Recipes from Mi’kmiq Traditions

The Mi’kmaq (also Míkmaq, Micmac, Migmaw; in Quebec, Canada, Mi’gmaq) are a Canadian First Nations people indigenous to northeastern New England, Canada’s Maritimes (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island), and the Gaspé Peninsula of the province of Quebec.

Because the Mi’kmaq are the indigenous people to northeastern North America and Maple trees are as well, the Mi’kmaq people are accredited as the first people to refine maple syrup.

MicMac Pudding (Mikmiq)

• 41/2 cups milk-6 Tbsp. cornmeal
• 3 Tbsp. all purpose flour-1 egg
• ½ cup each maple syrup and white sugar
• 2 tbsp. butter-1/2 tsp. salt

Scald 2 cups milk. Combine 1/ cup [cold] with cornmeal and flour. Add to scalded milk and cook until thick. Break egg into bowl and beat, add sugar, syrup, salt, 1 cup cold milk. Add to first mixture, and then add 1 cup cold milk. Put in pudding dish, dot with butter, bake at 300 degrees for 1 ½ - 2 hrs. Fresh fruit can be added. Serve hot or cold with cream.

French Canadian Custard

• 2 cups milk-3 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup maple syrup-1 tsp. vanilla

Lightly beat egg yolks, add syrup and dash of salt. Stir into scalded milk. Cook in double boiler until mixture adheres to the spoon. Add vanilla. Chill well before serving.

Creamy Maple

• 3 cups brown sugar-1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup cold milk=2 Tbsp. butter-salt
• ½ tsp. each nutmeats and vanilla

Combine all except nuts and vanilla. Stir gently on low heat until dissolved. Do not stir but boil to soft ball stage. Cool. Beat until thick and creamy. Add flavoring and nuts. Grease pan and cut before mixture hardens.

Maritime Topping

• 6 large marshmallows
• 1 egg white-dash of salt
• ½ cup maple syrup

Cut marshmallows into small quarters. Beat egg white until slightly stiff. Bring syrup to boil, then add marshmallows and salt and blend well. Pour over egg white and beat until well blended. Chill. Versatile. Pour over desserts, cakes, pudding, and ice cream. Makes 1 ½ cups.

Maple Apple Sauce

Cover with boiling water, 4 large apples, pared, cored and cut into quarters. Add 2 whole cloves. Cook until done and put through a sieve. Return to heat, adding 1 Tbsp. vinegar and ¾ cup of maple syrup. Cook about 10 minutes. Beat in 1 tsp. butter. Can be served hot or cold. It is especially good with roast pork.

• New England Gingerbread
• ¾ cup maple syrup-1/2 cup butter
• ½ cup brown sugar-1/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp. each of soda and ginger
• 2 cups sifted flour- 1 Tbsp. water

Sift ginger and flour. Add soda to the tablespoon of warm water. Beat egg, add sugar and butter. Add soda water to the maple syrup and stir into the egg mixture, Add milk. Stir in flour until well mixed. Bake in buttered pan at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes.

“Blessed of the Lord be his land…for the precious things put forth by the moon, and for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills.”

Deuteronomy33:14.15

” N.S. produced 57,700 litres of Maple syrup in 1981-42,700 was from Cumberland Co.”

Down East Cracker Pie

• Roll out about ¾ cup crackers fine
• 1 cup maple syrup-1 cup water
• ½ cup each-butter, vinegar, white sugar
• Raisins and assorted spices

Combine in a saucepan and cook a few minutes. Then bake in a two crust pie, Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, reduce to 350 and bake for 20 or 30 minutes more. Makes 2 pies.

“Sugar was a regular part of the diet by early 1800’s because the tea and coffee habit had started.”

North Country Cookies

• 1 cup maple sugar-3 ½ cup flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder-1/2 cup butter
• 2 eggs -1/4 tsp. salt

Cream sugar and butter, add eggs and beat. Add dry ingredients. Roll, chill and slice. Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes.

Maple Chiffon Pie

• 1 pkg. unflavored gelatin
• 1cup boiling water
• ¾ cup maple syrup
• 2 tsp. grated lemon rind
• 4 egg whites, stiff1 baked pie shell
• or graham cracker crust

Dissolve gelatin in water and stir. Add maple syrup and lemon rind. Cool. Beat egg whites until stiff and fold the two mixtures together, continuing to beat until fluffy. Turn into pie shell. Chill.

“The wood roads were heavy with mud, with here and there patches of old snow: scarcely a sign of spring except the running sap and the swelling buds.”

Maple Fruit Blossoms

• 1 cup maple syrup-2egg whites
• 1/3 cup seedless raisins
• 1/3 cup candied lemon peel
• 1/3 cup chopped figs [optional]
• 1 cup broken walnuts

Measure syrup into large saucepan. Boil to 254 degrees-until soft ball forms when dropped into cold water. Beat egg whites until stiff. Add syrup slowly. Beat until mixture peaks. Fold in fruit and nuts. Drop by teaspoonful about 1 inch apart on waxed paper and leave overnight. [or use lightly greased baking sheet] Bake in very slow oven [200 degrees] for 1 hour. Makes about 36 meringues.

“The sound of the whip-or-will was a harbinger of spring and a warning that the time to cease sugar-making had arrived.

Eliz. Therese Baird

Greywood Fudge

• 2 cup each maple syrup and white sugar
• 1 cup raisins-1 cup of nutmeats
• 2 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Boil syrup and sugar until it forms a thread. Gently add to the beaten egg whites. Continue to neat, adding raisins and nuts. Cool in a pan and cut into small squares.

Canadian Cake

Combined, softened, ½ shortening with 1 cup of maple syrup. Add to this, 1 cup of unsweetened thick applesauce. Thoroughly flour 1 cup raisins. Mix together 2 cups of sifted flour-1/2 tsp. salt, ½ tsp. each cinnamon and cloves, ¼ tsp. nutmeg and 1 tsp, soda. Gradually add dry mixture to first mixture, and then fold in the floured raisins. This makes a stiff batter. Just before baking, sprinkle with grated maple sugar. Bake ¾ to 1 hour.

“Marc Lescarbot said that if the Indians “are pressed by thirst, they get juice from trees and distill a very sweet and agreeable liquid, which I have tasted several times.”

Histoire de la Nouvelle France, 1609

Spring Tonic

• ¼ cup maple syrup-1/4 cup lime juice
• 1 cup light rum-1 cup ginger ale

Combine and stir well. Use a shaker or blend well. Pour over crushed ice to serve. Makes 4 drinks.

“The first run, [of sap] like first love, is always the best, always the fullest, always the sweetest”

John Burrows - Winter sunshine 1881

“In early 1848, nearly four million pounds of maple sugar was manufactured in Upper Canada”

Weekly Globe, 16 Nov. 1849 - Gage Publishing

Maple Tea

[Serve hot or cold ]

• 6 cups orange-spiced tea, strong
• 1 cup maple syrup - ½ cup orange juice
• ¼ cup lemon juice

Combine; stir well to dissolve the maple syrup. Chill well before serving. T o serve hot, it is best to heat in a double boiler so it will not boil. [Should it boil, it will take on a bitter taste]. Makes about 7 mugs.

Quebec Whipped Cream

• ¾ cup whipping cream
• ¼ cup maple syrup

Thoroughly cream and the syrup. Then beat cream until it begins to thicken. Add syrup, a small amount at a time, beating constantly, until stiff peaks form. Makes about 2 cups. Use as a topping or filling - the possibilities are endless - The effect is fantastic.

Detroit Spareribs

• 3 lb. spareribs - 1 cup maple syrup
• 1 Tbsp. each Worcestershire sauce, chili sauce and vinegar
• 1 small onion, finely chopped - salt
• ¼ tsp. dry mustard - 1/8 tsp. pepper

Roast ribs on a rack at 425 degrees for 30 minutes. Drain fat from pan. Cut ribs into serving’s pieces. Place in a 9 x 13 inch pan. Combine remaining ingredients in saucepan. Boil 5 minutes. Pour over ribs in pan. Bake, uncovered, at 375 degrees for1 hour. Baste and turn ribs over after 1 hour. To serve, skim fat off remaining sauce and serve with ribs. 4 servings.

“Classical fare for any blizzard night is pancakes drenched in pure maple syrup.”

“…. Of the country, there are others that are not neglected. Timber, staves. Hoops, shingles, oar rafters and handspikes, are, according to local conveniences, prepared during the leisure of the winter, and sold to coasting traders in the spring. The wood, the lakes, the rivers, contain food of different descriptions, If the moose, deer, and rabbit, the salmon and the trout, the gaspereaux, herring and shad, supply the wants and necessities of the wandering tribe of Indians, without one artificial product of the land, it must be acknowledged that it is not the fault of the country, if a settler cannot make a comfortable living, who, besides these advantages, possesses the means of cultivating a luxuriant soil. To the new settler the sugar maple tree is very valuable. In the early part of the spring of the year, when the sap first rises, the tree is tapped, and a certain quality of the sap or juice is drawn off, which is then boiled down, and manufactured into sugar. In some parts of the country large quantities are made, and in most of the families on new farms, a sufficiency for their own consumption. The process is attended with very little labor, and one tree will yield annually from five to eight pounds. In the United States, they know better how to appreciate the advantage of this tree than the inhabitants of Nova Scotia. Some years ago, in towns in Vermont, containing no more than forty families, 13,000 weight of maple sugar were made. In some parts of that State the inhabitants are starting to line the roads with maple trees, and it would certainly be very advantageous to Nova Scotia, if its farmers would adopt the same practice. The granulation of the sugar is easily performed and the quality, color, and flavor of it, when well made, is equal to any sugar manufactured in the West Indies,

Courtesy of the Public Archives of Nova Scotia

Thomas Chandler Haliburton - A General Description of Nova Scotia [Halifax.1825]

Sugar Glaze

Thoroughly mix together ½ cup sugar, ½ cup of maple syrup, and about ¼ cup water in a small saucepan. Quickly bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer about 3 minutes.

Beat into the mixture 1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar until smooth. Spread while hot. [If glaze is used on cakes or squares, store them in layers separated by waxed paper. They will keep for two or three weeks in a tightly sealed container.].

Note: ¾ cup of maple syrup equals 1 cup maple sugar. If substituting reduce liquid by 3 Tbsp. for each cup of syrup used.

“…An ancient wooden shack among magnificent old Maple trees…the steam from the boiling sap was pouring out through every crack.”

“When maple syrup is cooked to candy - [the sugaring-off] - the French in Canada call this la tire, or the pull. They pull the candy into ropes before it gets hard.”

Michigan Maple Pie

Make a 9 inch pie shell of your favorite pastry.

Gently heat 1 ½ cups maple syrup until ½ tsp. soda is dissolved. Do not bring to a boil. When it is cooled, pour into the pastry shell.

Combine 1 cup of sifted flour, 1 cup of brown sugar, ¼ butter.

When well blended, spread over top of maple syrup. Bake about 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Put a foil sheet underneath as it tends to boil over.

Maple Cornflakes

• ¾ cup maple syrup - ¼ cup butter
• ½ cup cornflakes - 4 Tbsp. cocoa
• 5 Tbsp. milk - vanilla

Melt butter and syrup; add milk, vanilla, and cocoa. Fold in cornflakes. Put in small heaps, do not bake.

Not; Maple butter should be tightly covered to prevent drying, or cover with a thin layer of water.

Loyalist Brown Bread

• ½ cup maple syrup - 1 cup corn meal
• 2 cups graham flour - 1 cup sour
• 1 tsp. soda - pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients. Bake in medium oven at 375 degrees for 1 hour. If batter is too heavy, add milk, a drop at a time. “The measure of a Sugar bush is not the number of trees, but the number of buckets that can be hung. [And wait until tree is mature].’

Cumberland County Cake

• Boil gently 1 ¼ cup maple syrup.
• Beat 2 egg whites well.
• Beat 2 egg yolks, add ½ tsp. vanilla
• Add yolks to maple syrup. Gently fold the two mixtures together.
• Sift together and fold into above mixture;
• 1 cup flour - 1/8 tsp. ground coriander
• 1 tsp. baking powder - dash of salt

I like to make this cake in a bundt pan. Bake about 1 hour at 325 degrees. Cool at least 1 hour on a rack, and then remove from pan. Top with sprinkled confectioner’s sugar or your favorite icing.

“Vermont was the first State in the Union to have a mandatory maple syrup grading law.”

Pictou Pudding

• 1 cup flour - 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp. butter - 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. baking powder - ¾ cup milk
• 1 cup nut meats - 1 cup raisins
• dash of salt - maple syrup

Combine butter and sugar; slowly add milk and dry ingredients, alternately. Gently fold in nuts and raisins. Pour into greased 13 x 9 x 2 in. baking pan. Cover generously with maple syrup. Bake for 35 minutes at 375 degrees. Serve with whipped or plain cream.

“These trees are…rock or sugar maple, and in the back settlements have great value in furnishing a luxury which the young settlers would otherwise be unable to procure.”

Letters to Nova Scotia - Moorsom. 1830

Maple Butter Spread

• Use only first quality fresh syrup.

Heat syrup to above boiling point of water. Remove immediately. Pour boiling syrup to a depth of 1 ½ in. in a well chilled flat pan. Cool pan quickly to 50 degrees. With two wooden paddles, quite like those used for making creamery butter - about 3 in, wide - scrape the thick syrup from one to the other. Allow about 2 hours to produce the maple butter. Store in a cold place.

“The sugar maple is not found in Europe except as an ornament”

“Catherine Parr Trail objected to hanging fat over the boiling syrup, “a common plan but I think by no means a nice one.” - The Canadian Settler’s Guide, 1860.

Maple Icing

• ½ cup maple syrup - 1 egg white

Beat egg white well. Gradually add maple syrup, continue to beat until icing peaks. Should cover a 9 x 7 in. cake. Serve immediately or keep cool as icing is uncooked.

“Before 1790 maple sugar was rarely used as a staple along the St. Lawrence, except by the sugar makers. - - Maple Sugar, It’s Native Origin - Marius Barbeau.

Pineapple Maple Punch

• 3 qt. pineapple juice, unsweetened
• 1 ½ cups lemon juice - 1/3 cup lime juice
• 3 cups orange juice - 1 cup sugar
• 1 ½ cups maple syrup

Combine and chill. Mix thoroughly. When it’s time to serve pour over ice in punch bowl. Gently add 4 - 28 oz. bottles ginger ale and 2 - 28 oz. bottles carbonated water. Both should be pre-chilled. [Makes about 75 cups].

Maple Fried Sweets

• Heat fat for deep-frying, about 375 degrees.
• Beat together until stiff - 3 egg yolks - 1 egg - ½ tsp. salt
• Gently add, ¼ cup confectioner’s sugar - 1 ½ Tbsp. maple syrup.

Measure 1 cup flour and add all at once. Knead well on floured surface. Make into two, rolling each one out to nearly paper-thin. Cut into diamond shapes, cutting a slit in each one at one end. Draw tail of diamond through the slit, curling back in opposite direction. Fry in deep hot fat, turn quickly when lightly browned, about 30 seconds. Drain on toweling and sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar.

Maple Pfeffernusse

• ¾ cup light brown sugar - ½ cup butter
• 1 egg - ½ cup maple syrup
• 3 1/3 cups flour - ½ tsp. soda
• ¼ tsp. salt - ½ tsp. clove
• ½ tsp. cinnamon

Mix butter, sugar, egg, maple syrup and about 3 drops of anise oil mixed with 1 Tbsp, of hot water. Sift flour and blend dry ingredients. Knead dough gently until pliable for shaping. Mold into wee balls - 1 in. diameter - and bake about twelve minutes on a greased sheet. These cookies will harden so it is suggested that they be stored with a slice of apple.

Mix a Maple Special: Add at least 3 tsp. maple syrup to your favorite fizz, Bacardi, sour, old fashioned or any other drink. Maple Fried Apples

Cut cooking apples into ½ inch slices and fry in hot oil. When golden brown, turn and fry the other side. When tender drizzle with maple syrup and serve at once.

“…the 3rd generation of a family that has made sugar every spring for seventy years…he knows by trial with a ladle when the syrup ‘aprons off” or “hairs off’.

Maple Cinnamon Toast

Cream together enough butter and maple syrup to cover required number of slices. Spread on the toast and sprinkle with cinnamon. Serve immediately.

“We brought in pails and pans of snow to “sugar off’… by the steaming pans, there was mighty joking and story telling”.