Maple syrup candy

[Darienne]

DH and I have just come back from our neighbor's sugar bush...my feet are cold and wet...but the bottle of fresh maple syrup they gave us is still warm from the pouring process.

I would like to make some candy with it, especially since my neighbor doesn't make candy and her kids love it when I make something for them.

I did find a 'Maple Candy' in Anita Chu aka Pastry Girl. Field Guide to Candy. It's just maple syrup and a bit of butter. Maple sugar basically.

Any other good ideas, please?

[stuartlikesstrudel]

I don't have any recipes but I'm sure there must be some maple fudge recipes, I imagine fudge would be a really nice way to use the maple flavour and compliment it with some great creaminess

[Darienne]

Hi SLS,

Yep, there are a lot of maple fudge recipes, but if I don't come across any other recipes to think about, I will use the one from Chu. It's more like maple sugar than fudge.

I looked through all my confectionery books and haven't found much that isn't fudge or maple sugar. And other maple candies call for maple flavoring.

[heidih]

Your post immediately brought to mind the syrup poured onto the snow that creates a sticky candy ala Little House on the Praire. I wonder if there is a sophisticated way to do this?

[dhardy123]

Greweling has a maple sugar candy on page 240.

I'm sure you could also make some kind of maple truffle?

[Scout_21]

I found that the fondant method produced a better (imho) candy than the bob. Basically heat up the maple syrup with a little bit of butter (1% of the total weight) to 234F or 112C pour onto a slap, let cool to 120F or 50C then table for 7-10 minutes. Let this mass crystallize for 10 minutes undisturbed. I then "rest" it overnight in a sealed container on the counter. Then just heat it up to 170F or 60C over a water bath and pour into molds (rubber ones work the best) or just discs on a silpat or parchment paper. Let crystallize for 30 minutes and unmold.

Cheers

[Darienne]

Your post immediately brought to mind the syrup poured onto the snow that creates a sticky candy ala Little House on the Prairie. I wonder if there is a sophisticated way to do this?

I found one recipe in which you pack snow into pans and then pour the resulting cooked syrup into the pans.

However, seeing as I am giving the candy to the children of the syrup donors, this is not a very useful end product. If we were 'making' the candy together, which we cannot for a variety of reasons, it would be a great idea .

[Darienne]

I found that the fondant method produced a better (imho) candy than the bob. Basically heat up the maple syrup with a little bit of butter (1% of the total weight) to 234F or 112C pour onto a slap, let cool to 120F or 50C then table for 7-10 minutes. Let this mass crystallize for 10 minutes undisturbed. I then "rest" it overnight in a sealed container on the counter. Then just heat it up to 170F or 60C over a water bath and pour into molds (rubber ones work the best) or just discs on a silpat or parchment paper. Let crystallize for 30 minutes and unmold.

Cheers

Right. Haven't tried either yet, but they are almost the same as the Chu recipe. All 'maple' candies appear to be variations of fudge or sugar, or don't use maple syrup at all, but simply maple flavoring. I am no scientific expert, like many of this forum, but the make-up of maple syrup seems to mitigate against using it in as many ways as say corn syrup or glucose.

It all explains no doubt why in looking through my collection of 'candy' books, I could find only the fudge or sugar type recipes...there simply really aren't any????

[Kouign Aman]

You could try boiling it to the hard crack temp and see what happens when you pour lollipops.

[Darienne]

This bottle I will do as the maple candy in Chu's book. We have some other maple syrup in the freezer from before...perhaps I will use it that way. Thanks for the advice.

[Darienne]

Reporting back on the Maple Candy which is not.

All went well except for the fact that the recipe didn't warn me that the window of opportunity in which to pour the thick, creamy beaten cooked mixture into the mold was a mere split second. As I was pouring the liquid mass, it set almost in mid-air and now I have a big lump of maple sugar.

I'll crush it to crystal state and make some maple sugar biscuits and take them to the family.

Oh well, I had a good time and another learning lesson. learn, learn, learn...

[Darienne]

Too late to add my follow-up to the last post.

This morning I dumped the maple sugar lumps into my tiny food processor to grind it down to maple sugar, preparatory to using it in roll-up biscuits, and was quite surprised to find that it did not grind into small crystals, but rather into small lumps...sort of like soft rounded gravel...which seem quite 'dampish'. High water content still I would guess.

Now the sugar lumps sit on a plate, drying, while I await any other information forthcoming from someone knowledgeable on what I might be doing instead...

[tim]

Darienne,

While I have never heard of using butter in maple candy, I do have the following thoughts.

1. It seems to me that you made maple cram/butter spread by cooking the syrup to 234F. Maple cream gets stiff when cool and is then packed into containers. It is used as a spread.

2. It is difficult to make maple sugar or candy when you have high humidity. The hot syrup will absorb water as fast as it evaporates the water.

3. When humidity drops, you can reheat the sugar to 244F. to 246F to make maple candy. Stir as the temp drops to 200 degrees then pour into molds before the temp drops to below 170 degrees.

You may also complete the dehydration in a convection oven. This method makes it difficult to judge the specific gravity; you won't know if it is maple sugar or maple candy. It also changes the texture that is achieved by pouring the hot maple sugar into molds.

Good luck,

Tim

Tim

[Beth Wilson]

The same thing happened to me when I thought I would try making toffee with maple syrup. The crystallization happened in the pot before my eyes as I was stirring!!!

I took the dried maple sugar and used it in my coffee and oatmeal for a whole winter! It made the best topping for a cappuccino too! I think it would be nice to sprinkle on a dessert of a crumble of some sort or sprinkled on freshly baked sugar cookies. Perhaps a maple buttercream enrobed in chocolate would be nice.

I was told by a local sugar bush expert that you have to have a certain level of sugar in the maple syrup in order to boil it to high temperatures. Perhaps your friends at the sugarbush have a recipe for maple butter or have advice on how to make the maple syrup suckers.

http://www.maplevalleysyrup.com/MapleRecipes.html

This site offers some interesting recipes to try and I just got some oat flour so I might just give them a try!

[Beth Wilson]

Is this something you are thinking of? The site seems to have some other good ideas too.

http://homecooking.about.com/cs/atozfoodindex/ht/maplecreamcandy.htm

[Darienne]

Darienne,

While I have never heard of using butter in maple candy, I do have the following thoughts.

1. It seems to me that you made maple cram/butter spread by cooking the syrup to 234F. Maple cream gets stiff when cool and is then packed into containers. It is used as a spread.

*** Do you mean 'cream'? Or what does 'cram' mean?

2. It is difficult to make maple sugar or candy when you have high humidity. The hot syrup will absorb water as fast as it evaporates the water.

*** good point

3. When humidity drops, you can reheat the sugar to 244F. to 246F to make maple candy. Stir as the temp drops to 200 degrees then pour into molds before the temp drops to below 170 degrees.

*** perhaps I could, but I'm not going to in this case.

You may also complete the dehydration in a convection oven. This method makes it difficult to judge the specific gravity; you won't know if it is maple sugar or maple candy. It also changes the texture that is achieved by pouring the hot maple sugar into molds.

***don't have a convection oven.

Good luck,

Tim

***Thanks for all the help.

[Darienne]

The same thing happened to me when I thought I would try making toffee with maple syrup. The crystallization happened in the pot before my eyes as I was stirring!!!

*** As I was poured the stuff which was liquid and suddenly wham! solid!!!

I was told by a local sugar bush expert that you have to have a certain level of sugar in the maple syrup in order to boil it to high temperatures. Perhaps your friends at the sugarbush have a recipe for maple butter or have advice on how to make the maple syrup suckers.

***Our friends are long-time syrup producers. They live on a road with their name on it and have their own cemetery going back 200 years. They know maple syrup!!! However, I know for sure that they don't know/do candy at all.

Thanks for the help. My next plan is maple pinwheel biscuits. You know...roll up the dough with sugar, butter and cinnamon inside, etc. Sticky buns, but biscuits. In fact, #1 batch will be made as soon as I stop typing. I just did the candy for the experience of it...nothing serious in mind.

[Darienne]

I found that the fondant method produced a better (imho) candy than the bob.

What exactly is the 'Bob' in Greweling's Bob Syrup, Maple Candies, p.240?

This is the closest I could come and don't have any idea of how it relates.

Viscosity

One of the properties often dealt with in rheology is viscosity which measures how thick a fluid is. For example is the viscosity of syrup (molasses in American) higher than the viscosity of water. It can be measured in several ways and I will here show how the viscosity of syrup is measured using a rotational viscometer. The syrup (yellow in the picture) is first poured into a cup. A tapered cylinder, which is called a "bob" is then inserted concentrically into the cup so that it is completely immersed in the syrup.

When the cup is rotated, the syrup transmits the force to the bob which will also start rotating if nothing prevents it. The torque bar is fixed to both the bob and to the measuring instrument, and prevents the bob from rotating. It is not completely stiff but allows a small deflection of the bob which is proportional to the force transmitted by the syrup."

Edited June 20, 2010 by Darienne (log)

[Kerry Beal]

I found that the fondant method produced a better (imho) candy than the bob.

What exactly is the 'Bob' in Greweling's Bob Syrup, Maple Candies, p.240?

This is the closest I could come and don't have any idea of how it relates.

Viscosity

One of the properties often dealt with in rheology is viscosity which measures how thick a fluid is. For example is the viscosity of syrup (molasses in American) higher than the viscosity of water. It can be measured in several ways and I will here show how the viscosity of syrup is measured using a rotational viscometer. The syrup (yellow in the picture) is first poured into a cup. A tapered cylinder, which is called a "bob" is then inserted concentrically into the cup so that it is completely immersed in the syrup.

When the cup is rotated, the syrup transmits the force to the bob which will also start rotating if nothing prevents it. The torque bar is fixed to both the bob and to the measuring instrument, and prevents the bob from rotating. It is not completely stiff but allows a small deflection of the bob which is proportional to the force transmitted by the syrup."

A 'bob' syrup is the base syrup for a fondant. So if you want to make 118 degree fondant - you boil your glucose, sucrose and water to 118 degrees, cool and start to beat until it crystallizes.

An alternative is to make a 'bob' syrup - add some previously crystallized fondant to it as it cools and let the fondant seed the bob.

I suspect that the description above relates to determining how concentrated the syrup is.

[Darienne]

Thanks Kerry. Another piece of the puzzle in place.

[pringle007]

I make a vanilla-maple marshmallow in the fall. I use real maple syrup. I can send you the recipe if you'd like.

[Darienne]

I make a vanilla-maple marshmallow in the fall. I use real maple syrup. I can send you the recipe if you'd like.

You are on. Please.

[prairiegirl]

Does anyone have a good idea/recipe for making a maple syrup ganache?

[Kerry Beal]

Does anyone have a good idea/recipe for making a maple syrup ganache?

How about a water ganache using maple syrup as the liquid?