Maple Sugar Recipes

Maple sugar making is an old art; the Indians were doing it when the white-man came to Canada. It is said the Indians discovered this accidentally when an Indian woman used sap from a maple tree to boil some meat. The meat was very sweet when cooked. This was the first maple syrup, all because she did not want to go to the brook for water and used sap instead.

In the early days all maples were tapped by an axe cut. Any break in the bark will allow the sap to run. Squirrels cut off the bud end of a limb to get the sap.

The storage or holding tanks were wooden tubs-”200-300 gallons”. One man who made these tubs was John Francis Smith, born [Nappan] 1835. He had a sugar woods in Fenwick.

“The horse and sled, with enough cans for that road, were breaking the sled road, while we were breaking the path for sap-gathering. The first two men with no load broke the path for the last man with the cans. This worked quite well if one of the first men didn’t wander off to find spruce gum.” “Some years the snow was too deep to walk through, we had to use snowshoes. That was a tricky job, little fir trees made a trap that would trip you up or should I say down?”

From 1917-1920, Lawson Smith rented a sugar bush of 500 trees.

“In 1910 I saw a load of maple cream from the Higgs woods that weighed a ton…cream was the leader…Higgs had a marble slab to use instead of snow for cooling the maple candy.” The slab was greased with the butter. Others used the slab too.

“The cream sugar had a method of its own. Cooked to about 238 degrees F. then cooled to ice-cold, warmed to loosen from the sides of the pot and beaten to turn white, Tricky, will set in pots sometimes before you can put it in the moulds.’

1910 prices:

Sugar and Candy: 15 cents a lb.

Syrup: $1.00 a gallon

Higgs Maple Cream: 20-25 cents a lb.

In pioneer days, powdered maple sugar was made.

“Ephraim Smith said that the Ripley Bros. of Fenwick, Cumberland Co., N. S. were still using birch bark containers in 1894 to catch sap in. A small birch bark container was used to hold maple candy [wax] that was first cooled by being spread on snow and then gathered up and broke in pieces.”

“To peel this birch bark was a big undertaking, the full moon in July was considered the best time…Also in July was a good time for black flies. They would be waiting for you by the dozens, with their aunts, uncles and cousins.”

“The sap was gathered in wooden tubs, placed on a sled, hauled off by horses or oxen.” Some had four of these tubs that held about 20 gallons each “or one big wooden tub that held about 100 gallons.’

In the early days the maple producers got a better return, more sap and sweeter. “The maple trees were in their prime-age and storms slow them up. One sleet storm alone set the trees back forever.”

“Like cows, some trees under the same conditions are better than others.”

“Boiling water or sap will scald, but boiling syrup will cook you because it has more heat. Even a splatter on hands or face will cause pain.” Thanks to Ernest and Coates of Nappan for making a copy of Lawson Smith’s sugar story and sending it to me. There are probably hundreds of untold stories of sugar bush happenings in Nova Scotia.

The Algonquin word for maple sugar is Sinzibuckwud, meaning “drawn from wood.”

Foamy Frosting

• 1 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 egg whites, beaten
• Slivered almonds

Cook sugar and syrup together until it forms a thread. Pour syrup slowly over egg whites. Beat until it will hold peaks. Gently fold in slivered almonds.

Ohio Baked Beans

• 2 cups yellow eye beans
• 2 tsp. salt
• ½ lb. salt pork with rind scored
• ½ tsp. soda
• ¼ tsp. dry mustard
• ½ cup maple syrup

Soak picked-over beans overnight, then boil about twenty minutes in salted water, adding soda to last 5 minutes. Drain.

Place half of salt pork in bottom of bean pot. Add beans with maple syrup and mustard. On top, place the other half of salt pork, scored rind up. Cover with boiling water. Bake about 6 hours, covered, at 325 degrees F. add water if necessary. Uncover and cook 1 more hour. Serves 6 huge helpings.

The sap of the maple can provide a “spirit”, but we hope this precious gift never be prostituted…to this ignoble purpose.

From The Maple Sugar Book

Helen and Scott Hearing,1950

 

Maple Orange Chop Sauce

Use your favourite stuffing for 6 pork chops. 1″ thick.

Sauté chops with butter over a low heat-about 6 minutes on each side. Add 1 cup maple syrup mixed with ½ cup of orange juice to skillet. Cover and simmer 20 minutes. Remove cover, cook 15 minutes more, basting frequently.

Some maple sugaring tricks are older than Canada…then there is finally-the clear, golden brown goodness, the essential sweetness of the micktan tree, the stuff the redmen believed to be “the blood of the Manitou, the great god of the forest.”

Kenneth MacNeill Wells

 

Moncton Mousse

• 1 envelope of unflavoured gelatin
• ¼ cup cold

water

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup maple syrup
• ½ pint whipped cream
• 1 Tbsp. grated chocolate

Soften gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes. Beat maple syrup and yolks in a double boiler. Cook and stir 10 minutes. Add gelatin. Cool, but do not set. Beat cream until peaked-add, with whipped cream, the maple syrup. Beat egg whites and fold into maple mixture. Refrigerate. Garnish with chocolate.

Maple Sunset

• 2 cups cranberry juice, chilled
• 2 cups light cream, chilled
• 1 cup maple syrup

Combine. Stir well to dissolve syrup. Chill well and serve over ice. Makes 4 generous mugs.

Linda Purdy of Collingwood, Cumberland Co. says that her earliest memories of Maple Syrup are “mostly sounds and sensations.” She would be about 5 years old,” carried on my father’s shoulders or riding on a bob sled.” She remembers the “slurp made by the horse’s hoofs as they were lifted out of the spring mud.”

The farmers say there is “no real money in it” but sugar making comes at a time when ordinary farm work is slack…the spring makes them restless and they want to get into the woods and see the sap running.

Maple Popcorn

• 2 cups sugar
• ½ cup maple syrup
• 1 ½ cups water
• 1 tsp. vinegar
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. maple flavouring
• 5 quarts of popped corn

Butter the sides of a large saucepan. Combine sugar, salt, syrup, vinegar and water. Cook until hard-ball stage, and then stir in maple flavouring. Slowly pour mixture over the popped corn, mixing gently. Butter hands and shape into small balls.

More Sugar stories from Lawson Smith:

“My grandfather, John Smith, bet that he could put his hand down in a pot of boiling syrup. He did and won the bet. He greased his hand and arm with butter, and then cooled his arm in a snow bank. That’s how bets are won.”

“Dandy Gould of Upper Nappan was a peddler of maple candy. He sold it on the streets of Amherst weeks before the sugar season had started. He told that he had boiled all night in Fenwick that was the custom in sugar making.” It was Sunday and the good people would be going to church “so he rushed to get past the church ahead of them.” He put extra wood on the fire, got careless, hit a pot leg, and his syrup ran into the fire. He said, “I swore until the woods turned blue.” So he had no candy to sell that week.

The American Indians made birch bark containers holding about 20-30 lbs. of Maple Sugar.

Season for sugar-making came when the first crow appeared.

Usually each female Indian had her own sugar shack.

Water was made to boil by tossing hot stones in and out.

Maple Nuts

• 1 cup flour
• 2 cups rye meal
• 1/3 cup corn meal
• 1 egg
• Dash of salt
• ½ cup maple syrup
• 1 1/3 cup water
• 3 tsp. baking powder

Combine dry ingredients in bowl. Beat egg and add to maple syrup and 1 cup cold water. Mix all well.

Cut batter into small dabs and fry in hot fat. Cook to a maple brown-a mouth watering “doughnut” of maple sweetness.

Early colonists were urged to use maple sugar produced by men and women who were happy and free, rather than sugar from cane, provided by “wretched slaves.”

 

Maple Fog

• Scald 1 ½ cups milk in top of double boiler
• 2 eggs, separated
• 1 tbsp. gelatin
• ¼ cold water
• 1 cup maple syrup
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. vanilla

Beat egg yolks, combine with a bit of hot milk. Blend with yolks, cook about 4 minutes.

Soak gelatin in cold water and then add to hot milk mixture.

Add maple syrup and salt, blend well. Chill. Gently fold in stiffly beaten egg whites and vanilla. Chill. Serve with Fluffy Sauce.

Cumberland Maple Pie

Prepare a baked pastry shell.

• 2 cups maple syrup
• 2 tbsp. flour
• ½ cup milk
• ½ cup light cream
• 1 Tbsp. butter

Mix maple syrup and flour in a saucepan, then add milk cream and butter. Stir gently over moderate heat and boil to 210 degrees F. cool, and then pour into shell. [for a change you can cover with a top crust]. Bake low in the oven at 375 degrees F. about 30-40 minutes or until golden brown.

 

Maple Cream Topping

• 1 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 cup maple syrup

Cream must be cold. Whip until it begins to thicken. Add syrup and beat until it retains its shape. Serve with cake, pudding or custard.

Rice Pudding

• 1 cup maple syrup
• 3 eggs
• 2 ½ cups boiled rice
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 ½ cups milk
• ½ tsp. nutmeg
• 1 cup raisins

Combine. Place in buttered baking dish. Bake until firm [at about 325 degrees F.]. serve hot or cold, with or without cream. Serves 8.

New Hampshire Pudding

• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup maple syrup
• 3 tbsp. minute tapioca
• Dash of salt

Cook in double boiler for about 15 minutes. Add beaten yolk of 2 eggs. Then fold in beaten whites. Serve in sherbet glasses topped with 1 Tbsp. whipped cream. Serves 6.

Maple Eggnog

• 12 eggs, separated
• ½ cup bourbon
• ½ cup maple sugar
• ¾ cup rum
• 4 cups cold milk
• Ground nutmeg
• 2 cups whipping cream
• Dash salt

Beat egg yolks and gradually add maple sugar. Beat well. Add milk, bourbon, rum, and salt. Whip the cream. Beat egg whites until peaks are stiff.

Combine yolks, whites and whipped cream. Serve immediately in a large punch bowl, adding a few drops of maple flavouring just before serving.

“The fire is kept bright all day and night. Two women are detailed to watch the kettles closely; for when the sap boils nearly to syrup, it is liable to bubble over at any moment…they use a branch of hemlock and dip it in quickly settling the syrup for a while.”

Boston Baked Beans

• 1 quart parboiled red kidney beans
• 1 cup maple syrup
• ¼ lb. salt pork
• ¼ cup chili sauce
• 1 small onion
• 1/8 tsp. pepper
• ¼ tsp. dry mustard
• 1 tsp. ginger
• Dash of salt

Score salt pork and add to about half of the beans. Mix half of the maple syrup and the other ingredients and combine with all the beans in a bean crock. Cover with boiling water and bake at 300 degrees F. for 4 hours. Uncover, add rest of maple syrup and bake another hour, adding water if necessary.

Serves at least six helpings.

 

Peanut Butter Maple Fudge

• ½ cup maple syrup
• ½ cup milk
• 1 cup brown sugar
• ½ tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup white sugar
• Pinch of salt
• ¼ cup corn syrup
• ½ cup peanut butter

Combine and cook all except butter and vanilla on medium heat. Boil to 238 degrees F. on candy thermometer. Add peanut butter and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Pour into a buttered pan.

“A sap-run is the sweet goodbye of winter…the fruit of the equal marriage of the sun and frost.” J. Burroughs

“Three copious meals…are daily served up…maple molasses, Pease-pudding, gingerbread, and sour crout.” Canadian Scenery, I. Willis 1840

Algonquin Sausage

Cover a lb. link of skinless sausage with a small amount of water. Cook for 10 minutes at 325 degrees F. Remove from oven, pour maple syrup over the sausage. Cover sausage and bake until tender. Just before serving, remove cover and brown the meat.

Maple syrup adds to the taste of Polish sausage-cut into 2″ chunks and simmered in the syrup.

It takes 40 gallons of maple sap to produce just 1 gallon of the concentrated sweetness which is pure maple syrup. To provide enough heat to boil down that maple sap foe a gallon of syrup it takes a log of wood as big as a man, split, sawed and dried, of course.

 

Fox River Ham

Bake ham until about a half hour before done. Brush liberally with a mixture of orange marmalade and maple syrup. Experiment a bit with the amount of maple syrup. You might want to add some extra maple syrup on top of the mixture.

Puzzle: At what period and why was reference made to the “innocent maple”?

Answer: In the late 18th century there were strong voices against slavery. History and literature makes many such references. In an 1842 “History of Vermont” people were told the praises of Maple sugar-”it is never tinctured with the sweat, and the groans, and the tears, and the blood of the poor slave.”

 

Maple Blueberry Muffins

• 1/3 cup wheat germ
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 ¾ cup flour
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup maple sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• ¼ cup oil
• 1 ½ tsp. grated lemon rind
• 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Combine flour, wheat germ, sugar, baking powder, lemon rind, and salt. Blend thoroughly. Beat in small bowl, egg, oil, and milk. Add liquid ingredients to first mixture. Barely stir. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin paper cups 2/3 full [grease well if muffin tin is used]. Bake a25 minutes at 400 degrees F. Sprinkle top of warm muffins with grated maple sugar.

“The harvest of sap suitable for maple syrup ends with the true buds.”

 

Sugar Bush Relish

Clean, core and chop about 6 lbs. of firm, tart apples.

Mix together:

• 1 lb. raisins
• 2 oranges, juice and grated rind
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 ¼ cups maple syrup

Cook slowly, about 1 hour, stirring frequently. About 5 minutes before removing from heat, add ½ lb. shelled, broken walnuts. Use at once or store in sterilized glasses.

Northfield Cookies

• 1 cup maple syrup
• ½ cup butter
• 1 tsp. soda
• 2 ¼ cups flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 ¾ tsp. baking powder
• 1 ½ tsp. maple flavoring

Bring syrup to a boil. Remove from heat. Add soda and butter. Blend remaining ingredients except maple flavoring and stir well. Chill slightly. Add flavoring. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll out paper thin dough using scant flour on board. Cut as desired. Bake on lightly greased sheet about 6 minutes. Watch! Do not bake too long.

Green is a comfortable color, the color of hops, the color of spring.

The early settlers called maple syrup “Indian molasses.”

The sugar maple is self supporting, self seeding, and self perpetuating. The maple syrup is claimed to have a mild delicacy of flavor-unequalled.

On the first night of “boiling” the sugar maker’s family will sit down around the kitchen table for a little well deserved rest and josh each other about their recent sap gathering experiences in the sugar bush. It doesn’t matter now that the sap had once frozen solid in the buckets and that a spooked deer had crashed through the new fangled pipe line, for here comes Mother setting out the sauce dishes full of the first taste of syrup, to be enjoyed of course, with a fresh batch of doughnuts. “By Gory, after all is said and done, sugaring is fun!”