Part 8

Seven pounds fruit, 1 pint best maple or cider vinegar, 1 tablespoonful ground cinnamon, 3 pounds of maple sugar, 1 teaspoonful ground cloves, 1 teaspoonful ground allspice. Boil until the fruit is tender. This is excellent for plums, pears, peaches or cucumbers.

Maple Sugar on Snow.

For preparing maple sugar for eating on snow, either sugar or syrup may be used, but the syrup if obtainable, is best. Boil the syrup until, when dropped on snow, it remains on the surface and becomes waxy, then spread it upon the surface of the snow or a block of ice. If the sugar is used, add a little water and melt it, being careful not to burn, and treat in the same manner as the syrup. This will be found, as every sugar maker knows, one of the most delicious treats obtainable.

CANDY.

Maple Taffy.

Place together in the kettle, 2 pounds of maple sugar, 1 pound of brown sugar, ½ pound of glucose and 1 pint of water, and stir until the mixture is dissolved. Boil until the taffy will snap when tested in cold water, then pour it upon a buttered dish or slab to cool. The candy may be checked off in squares, or, if preferred, it may be pulled until white.

Maple Candy.

Three cups sugar, 1 cup syrup, ½ cup water. When it comes to a boil put in one large spoonful of vinegar ¼ teaspoonful of cream of tartar, 1 lump of butter the size of a walnut. Boil until brittle when dropped into cold water. Pull until light and dry.

Two cups maple honey, 1 cup sugar, ¼ teaspoonful soda, lump of butter half as big as an egg. Boil until brittle when dropped in water, and then take off and cool on plates. When cold, pull and cut up.

Two cups maple sugar, ½ cup of water, 1 tablespoonful vinegar. Boil until it will be crumpy when dropped in cold water. Turn on buttered plates; when cool enough, pull and cut into sticks.

Maple Cream Without Cream.

No. 1. Place in a batter bowl the whites of two eggs and two cups of the best maple syrup. Whip these together with an egg-beater or fork, and then throw in enough XXX confectioners’ sugar to thicken sufficiently to mould into shapes. Coat with either chocolate or plain cream.

No. 2. Mix two pounds of maple sugar, a fourth of a teaspoonful of cream of tartar and a cup of water, and boil until a little of the syrup will form a “soft ball” when tried in water. Set it away in the kettle until almost cold, and then work it with the paddle until it becomes creamy or cloudy, when pour immediately into a shallow tin pan. When cold, turn the pan upside down, when the cream will drop out. Divide into blocks.

Maple Cream.

Two cups of maple sugar, one-half cup of cream. Let it boil until it hairs then stir in one cup of nuts, butternuts preferable.

Pour into buttered tins and when nearly cold cut in squares.

Maple Sugar Fudge.

Two cups of white sugar. One cup of maple sugar, two-thirds cup of sweet milk. Cook twelve minutes after it begins to boil. Remove from the stove and add a piece of butter size of a walnut and 1 cup of walnut meats. Stir until it thickens then pour into a buttered tin. When nearly cold cut in squares.

Maple Sugar Candy.

Two pint bowls maple sugar, 1 pint bowl white sugar, 1 pint bowl of water, two or three tablespoons whipped cream, one large coffee cup butternuts. Place kettle with the sugar and water in it on back of the stove until sugar is dissolved then draw forward and boil until the soft ball stage is reached (being careful not to stir the sugar after it commences to boil). Remove to a cool place until nearly cold before stirring. When partly grained add whipped cream, turn into tins and set in a cool place to harden.

Nut Candy.

Nice maple sugar with sufficient water to dissolve it, 1 tablespoonful of vinegar to 2 pounds of sugar, and butter size of walnut. Boil until very hard when tried in water. Pour immediately into a buttered pan in which the nuts have been placed. Cut into sticks before cold.

Maple Opera Caramels.

Measure a cup and a half each of coffee and maple sugar, one cupful of cream, and a fourth of a small teaspoonful of cream of tartar, and boil the cream and sugar together, adding the cream of tartar, wet with a little cream, as soon as the syrup reaches the boiling point. Cook until a drop of syrup, lifted out on the point of a skewer and dropped into very cold water, may be rolled into a soft, creamy ball between the fingers. Care must be taken to stir the syrup incessantly, and also that the bottom of the pan or kettle does not come into direct contact with the fire, as the cream is very apt to scorch. When done, remove from the fire, flavor, and pour on a slab, sprinkled with a very little water. When cold, cream the candy as directed for fondant, and as soon as perfectly smooth, form into a sheet half an inch thick, using the rolling pin. Let it remain on the slab a few hours, when divide into strips and wrap in parafin paper.

Maple Molasses Cocoanut Squares.

Place in the kettle a scanty cupful of new maple molasses and a tablespoonful of butter, and, when boiling add a grated cocoanut. Cook over a slow fire, stirring until done. As soon as the hot candy will harden when dropped into cold water, pour it out upon a well buttered slab; and when hardened sufficiently cut it into squares and wrap in parafin paper.

Pulled Taffy.

Take three cupfuls of dry maple sugar, a cupful of vinegar and water in equal parts (one-third vinegar and two-thirds water may be used if the vinegar is very strong) and a piece of butter the size of a walnut. Boil the sugar, water and vinegar together until half done, then add the butter, stirring only enough to incorporate the butter thoroughly, and boil until done. Drop a little of the candy now and then into cold water and test by pulling it apart; if it snaps it is done and must be immediately poured upon a buttered dish to cool. Flavor with a little vanilla extract poured upon the top. When the taffy has cooled sufficiently to handle, it may be pulled, cut into short lengths and placed on buttered dishes or parafin paper.