Maple Sugar Candy

The sap hasn't been running much the past week or so. Too cold, I guess! But I had enough last week to attempt a batch of maple sugar. After some research, I decided that I what I needed to do was to bring the sap up to 30 degrees F above the boiling point of water. I tested my thermometer in a tea kettle of boiling water to determine exactly what temperature our water boils at. Here, it is 209 degrees F. So I brought the sap up to about 240 degrees F. Then I let it cool until just below the boiling point of water. It is important not to stir it during this time, so say my sources.

After it cooled down, I stirred it briskly with a wooden spoon until my arm was about to fall off. By this time, it was thicker and lighter in color, but not really sugary. I think I should have brought the temperature up a bit higher. But I did end up with a few cute little maple candies by pouring some of the maple cream/sugary substance into mini cupcake liners. It was really good!

I tried to put the rest into the mixer because I had read that would help to release the moisture, but I ended up with this:

Doesn't exactly look like maple sugar does it? So I spread it into two glass dishes and let it set. Next day, it was mostly pretty hard but still had some moisture in it, so I spread it all out on a pan to dry. Then I threw it all in the food processer and pulsed it until it turned into nice dry sugar.

I am hoping it will keep for awhile, but I'm not totally sure, never having done this before. I have the little side-door of our downstairs freezer full of syrup but I am still hoping for one more good run!  Maybe the snow today will bring it on?

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