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[This one is for Aunt Jone! 
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]There is a chapter in Little House in the Big Woods (by Laura Ingalls Wilder) when they pour boiling maple syrup into snow, and it hardens into candy. I had always wanted to try that as a kid, but alas, it does not snow in Southern California!
I do remember one year when my family went on our annual Tahoe ski vacation; there was a ton of snow on the ground and when my mom went shopping I requested some pure maple syrup. Once I had it I decided that boiling it would be too much trouble, and probably wouldn’t make a difference so I just poured the raw syrup onto the snow and got a maple flavored snowcone for all my trouble!
I decided this year would be the year of the maple syrup candy! Along the way I found a great blog, A New Old-Fashioned Gal, and her post on maple syrup candy … and it is so easy to make!
You’ll need:
~ 100% Maple Syrup (Light/Medium is best … of course, I ended up using Dark and it tastes fine!)
~ Candy thermometer
~ Saucepan (high sides are good)
~ Olive/Vegetable oil
~ Candy molds (optional)
All you have to do is pour the syrup into the sauce pan and heat it to boiling without stirring. Add a few drops of oil to keep the bubbling/frothing down. I didn’t have any issues with the syrup boiling over. Use the candy thermometer, and once the temp reaches about 240* F [soft-ball stage], remove from heat. Let cool for about 3 minutes, and start to stir. The syrup will start to become opaque- this is when you want to pour it out to “set up” (crystalize). If you stir too long it will set up in the saucepan, and if you don’t stir enough it might not set up at all! You can use candy molds; I just greased a baking pan and poured it right out, but I thought it was hard to break up. You can pour it over some parchment paper too.
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>Hope you had a wonderful Christmas.
>Yum! Thank you Marcelle. You would probably like your great grandmother Penuche recipe (brown sugar fudge)
>Oh, Jeepers, I sure do remember that from Little House in the Big Woods! I desperately wanted to try that too, but alas, we lived in Arizona, though I vaguely remember convincing my mom to let me try boiling the syrup and drizzling it over ice cubes– I dont think it worked! Other highlights from that book: Pa building a smoker from a hollow log, and Pa going off to the big city and returning with carefully wrapped lumps of brown sugar for the girls. I hadnt thought about those books in a while– thanks for the reminder! Happy new year!
>As soon as I read the title to this I thought of Little House on the Prairie… I used to have all the books, in a set. I loved them. I wish I still had them…Just as an update, we FINALLY got our plumbing fixed yesterday, so if the ghost comes back I’ll let you and Jen know! I’m still convinced she was afraid of water….