Maple Syrup Classic Recipes

Maple Apple Fritters

Make a drop batter and beat,

• 1 Tbsp. maple syrup
• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 egg, beaten]
• Pinch of salt

Slice, peel and core required number of apples. Make slices about ¼ inch thick. Dip each slice in the batter and drop into hot fat, as with doughnuts.

When lightly browned, remove to drain on heavy brown paper or several layers of paper towels. Serve at once with maple syrup drizzled over the top.

Often the sweet water, freezing in the trough at night, cracked it asunder and made it useless.

Edmond Savoie

Maple Syrup Brittle

• 2 cups maple syrup
• Dash salt
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• ¼ tsp. cream of tartar

Combine in saucepan and boil to 200 degrees F. To prevent sugar crystals, do not stir syrup. Pour into lightly greased 7″ x 7″ pan, being careful to avoid scrapings from saucepan. When firm enough, mark into squares. When cold, invert pan and tap gently on bottom to remove candy. Break into “brittle” squares.

“The Beauce is probably the best maple sugar district in Canada and undoubtedly has the best sugaring off parties.”

Glengarry Sweet Bread

• 2 ¼ cups flour
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• 1 ¼ tsp. salt
• ¾ tsp. baking powder
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 2 eggs, beaten
• ½ cup milk
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1 tsp. grated lemon peel

Grease and flour 3 loaf tins-or one 9 x 5 loaf pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine first five ingredients. Cut in shortening.

In a small bowl, combine beaten eggs, milk, syrup and lemon peel. Mix well. Stir the two mixtures together until flour is moistened. Spoon batter into pans. Bake until toothpick comes out dry. Cool on racks 10 minutes, then remove from pans and cool more.

Loaves can be frozen.

St. Ann’s Special

Toast six slices of whole wheat bread on top of stove-toast only one side. Butter the other side. Sprinkle over the butter-1 ½ cups maple sugar, crushed and rolled. Place on a cookie sheet under the broiler until sugar has melted.

The toasted maple is lovely served in a bowl with whipped cream.

“If the Indians that used to throw hot stones in a hollowed out log full of sp could see some of these contraptions [new equipment], they’d probably think white man has a clinker in his thinker.”

National Maple Digest

Sugar making was an aboriginal custom of the northeast Indians and so, it is to the Indian that we are “indebted for the important product of maple sugar”

Helen and Scott Nearing

The Maple Sugar Book

Weather controls Sugaring

Weather controls the Sap

“Sugar makers feel the sugar weather in their bones”

Nearing

“Many a farmer sits up all night boiling the sap… and a lonely vigil he has of it amid the silent trees”

John Burroughs

Signs and seasons, 1914

Butter Icing from Upstate-with Maple Syrup

• 6 Tbsp. butter
• 6 Tbsp. maple syrup
• 2 cups confectioner’s sugar
• ½ cup chopped nutmeats

Cream butter and beat into syrup. Add sugar gradually, beat until smooth. Will ice a double layer cake-sprinkle with nuts.

“Tall Tales” told by Lawson Smith, late of Cumberland County

“Sydney smith was tapping maple trees for A. c. Higgs. The boys, Howard McKay and Curtis Bacon, tapped a spruce tree and hung a can on it, and they said, “Sydney, Sydney did it” Sydney was indignant, he guessed he knew a maple tree from a spruce tree.”

“A slack period at Higg’s Sugar Woods, the men were splitting wood, Alex Smith [Robie’s grandfather] was running the evaporator, he stood in the doorway and told one fellow, “Lay on, lay on the beef” [work harder]. That fellow got even later, he brought in two or three tanks of “brook” water for sap. Alex said, “is, dis poorest sap I ever boiled”

From the sugar memoirs of Lawson Smith who lived in Nappan, N. S.

Tongue with Sweet-sour Sauce

• 4 lbs. beef tongue
• ½ cup vinegar
• ½ cup maple syrup
• ½ cup boiling water
• 1 chicken bouillon cube
• 2 tsp. whole cloves
• 2/3 cup seedless raisins
• 1 small lemon, thinly sliced

Boil tongue gently in salted water until tender, 3-4 hours. Drain. Remove skin and roots and place in baking pan. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over tongue. Bake at 375 degrees F. for 45 minutes, basting frequently. Remove meat to serving dish, slice it, and remove the cloves from sauce and spoon over slices. Serves 6-8.

From Maple Cooking, 1969, Beatrice Vaughan

Rep. by permission The Steven Greene Press, Brattleboro, Vermont

Sap Spiles are made from the Staghorn Sumac tree. Do not confuse this with the White Sumac, or “poison Sumac.”

Acadian Navets

Peel and slice about 1 ½ lbs. young turnip. Sauté in saucepan with about 2 Tbsp. butter. Sprinkle with 1 Tbsp. maple sugar. Cook until golden. Add ½ cup boiling water with 1 bouillon cube dissolved in it. Cook until tender.

The Cree called the sugar maple, Sisibaskwatattik [tree].

The Ojibway called maple sugar, Ninautik,[our own tree].

“When carefully made, this sugar is very sweet…and it is wholesome for the stomach. Its preparation, besides, involves almost no cost…But the people really do not make enough of for exportation, and in this they may be wrong. There are many other things in this country that are likewise neglected.”

Journad d’un Voyage

Charlevoix 1744

Maple Banana Eggnog

Peel one banana and cut into small pieces. Either with a beater or in a blender, combine with 1 egg, 2 Tbsp. maple syrup,1 cup cold milk. Makes 2 drinks-but makes you want 8!

A dear friend, Yolande Connors, who grew up in Quebec and is now living in Kingston, Ontario told me about cooking eggs in maple sap.

When she was a young girl, it was not uncommon to poach eggs in the ever-plentiful maple sap. Some people always boiled their eggs in the sap. I’ve not yet tried to poach eggs in the syrup!

The Maple family has more than a hundred species.

Maple Turkey Glaze

About one hour before turkey is cooked, remove from oven. Take bird from roasting pan and place on a heavy-duty foil lined shallow pan. Cover with 1 ½ cups maple syrup and return to oven. Cook about one hour more, basting about every 15 minutes.

Maple Filled Cookies

• 1 cup maple syrup
• 1 cup shortening
• 3 beaten eggs
• 1 ½ cups brown sugar
• 3 tsp. soda
• 2 tsp. cream of tartar
• 6 cups flour
• 1 Tbsp. vinegar
• 1 tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. allspice
• ½ tsp. cloves
• 1 tsp. cassia

Sift 5 cups of flour with spices and salt. Combine in another bowl, sugar maple syrup, eggs, and melted shortening. Ad soda and cream of tartar dissolved in the vinegar. Stir in the flour, salt and spices. Add remaining flour if needed to make medium stiff dough. Roll very thin and cut.

Filling;

Cook together until thick, 2 lbs. ground crackers, 2/3 cup water, 2/3 cup brown sugar, and 1 cup raisins

Add 1 Tbsp. butter and ½ tsp. maple extract or 1 Tbsp. maple syrup. Filling goes between two cookies on buttered sheet. Bake 12 minutes at 375 degrees F.

Maple Squash Muffins

• ½ cup maple syrup
• ¾ cup milk
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 Tbsp. soft butter
• 2 ½ cups sifted flour
• Dash of salt
• 1 ½ tsp. baking powder
• 1 cup squash
• 1 tsp. cream of tartar
• ½ tsp.soda

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Combine dry ingredients, to which milk and soda are gently added. Mix squash, butter, sugar and syrup. Combine every thing and stir, but only until everything is equally damp. Butter a dozen muffin tins. Bake about 20 minutes.

[Zucchini can be substituted for the squash or even pumpkin]

Maple Meringues

• ½ cup maple sugar
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 Tbsp. milk
• 1 14 cups flour
• ½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ cup citron, chopped fine
• ¼ cup candied ginger, chopped fine

Maple meringue

Cream sugar and butter. Stir in egg yolk and milk. Measure the flour and add floored citron and ginger to butter mixture. Add 1 cup- plus 2 Tbsp. butter and baking powder. Blend and chill.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. On lightly floured board, roll out dough to 1/8 inch thick. Cut out with your favourite cutter. Place about 1 inch apart on greased cookie sheet. Top with 1 tsp. maple meringue. Bake 10-12 minutes. Makes about 5 dozen sweets.