“Sap’s a-runnin’!” Here are some bully maple syrup recipes
Caroline Coe, Home Expert, tells how to make all sorts of maple dainties — and they’re all good
To anyone reared where the hard maple has its home, the expression “sap’s a-runnin'” has deep significance. Many a city man or woman of strenuous life, hearing the first robin of the season, the harbinger of spring, will go back in mind to childhood’s days and the thought will come:
“This is good sugar weather.”
Methods of handling sap and making maple sugar which generally prevailed a few years ago would be considered primitive today. The picturesque has yielded to the practical, for the age of invention has affected even the sugar camp.
The modern “evaporator” has replaced the old cauldron kettle in which the sap was boiled over a fire made in the open and held in place by two immense logs, which usually withstood the blaze for the three or four days.
It takes about three days to gather and boil the sap, and then comes the “sugaring off.” This marks the children’s heyday and usually illustrates that the grown-ups are “but children of a larger growth.”
A time-honored precedent is that at each stage of this process, the small boys and girls shall sample the product. Into their saucers a spoonful of the syrup is dropped and they either stir it zealously to see if it “grains,” or hunt some clean snow on which to pour the liquid and make the “wax,” which remains a treasured memory in after years.
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Here are some delicious maple recipes, tried and true:
Maple frappe recipe
One cup of maple syrup, 4 eggs and 1 pint of cream. Heat the syrup in a double boiler, add to it the beaten yolk of the eggs and cook 3 minutes. When cool, add well-beaten whites of eggs mixed with the cream, which has been whipped. Put in freezer, can or mold, pack in salt and ice and let stand 1 hour. Then cut down from the side, mix and let stand 1 hour longer.
Maple mousse
Whip 1 pint of cream light and drain. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs. Put in a saucepan 1 generous cup of maple syrup; stir into it the beaten yolks of eggs, place over the fire and stir until the mixture becomes hot. The eggs will thicken the syrup. Take from fire at once and stand in a pan of ice water. Beat with egg beater, until light and cold, when gently fold in the whipped cream. Pack in ice and salt, using more salt than for ice cream, and do not stir. Let stand 4 hours.
Maple syrup recipes: Penuche recipe (candy)
Three cups of maple sugar, 1 cup of milk, a piece of butter size of a walnut. Boil hard 4 minutes, remove from fire and beat until creamy. Just before pouring into buttered pan, stir in 1 cup black walnut meats.
Maple waffles
Beat the yolks of 2 eggs, add a teaspoon of salt, 1/4 cup of maple sugar, and 1 cup of sour milk, into which has been placed a pinch of soda. Sift into this 2-1/2 cups of flour and stir until the batter is perfectly smooth, then add a tablespoon of melted butter. The well-beaten whites of the 2 eggs should now be stirred in, and last of all, 2-1/2 teaspoons of baking powder. Beat the whole thoroughly, filling the hot waffle irons about two-thirds full. If the batter should be too thick, use a little water for thinning.
Maple junket recipe
Slightly sweeten and warm 1 quart of milk, flavor with 1 teaspoonful of maple flavoring. Dissolve 1 junket tablet in 1 tablespoonful of cold water, then add to the warm milk. Pour into glass serving dishes, and when firm, set in ice-box and chill.
Chop 1 cupful of maple sugar and 1/2 cupful of blanched almonds together, and when ready to serve the junket, spread a layer on top of each dish.
Maple cream recipe
Dissolve 1 package of orange jello in 1 pint of boiling maple syrup. Cool, then add 1 pint of whipped cream. Pour in mold and set in ice and salt to harden.
Photo 2: Woman standing in rustic kitchen stirring a pan on stove in a cabin near Lowville in the western Adirondack Mountain region. She is surrounded by vats, molds, and cakes of sugar (1911).