It’s truly shameful how much time and money I’ve spent learning to make proper maple sugar candy. Batch after batch either set before I could mold it or simply never set at all. Not one to give up easily, I kept tweaking the times and temps with the hope of achieving the perfect molded leaf. However, my efforts continued to be in vain and the numerous attempts left me beyond frustrated. “WHY?!” I would cry out in desperation to the cold, dead universe. But I received no answer.

As with most of my grand failures, this one can be attributed to pride. Or laziness, perhaps it was laziness. But regardless of the underlying character flaw that resulted in catastrophe after catastrophe, I finally came to grips with my lack of understanding and asked an expert: Mrs. Jorn at Jorn’s Sugar Bush in Egg Harbor, WI.

The process she described matched mine exactly except for one small detail. Assuming that water boils at 212°F everywhere on the globe, I did not actually check to find the temperature at which water boils in Elgin, IL. Forehead slapping ensued.

This all ends happily, however, because I now am finally able to redeem the wasted resources by passing on the knowledge I’ve gained. The first step of this recipe follows. Do not skip this step. Hopefully, it will help you avoid the same prideful trap into which I fell.

Step 1) Repeat after me: “I do not really know the temperature at which water boils”

I’m serious, say it out loud. Because if you do not acknowledge this fact, you WILL get caught in a dreadful downward spiral of trial and error which will ultimately claim your sanity.

That being said, maple sugar candy is the simplest thing on earth to make once you know how. :-)
Sooo, here’s how:

 

Maple Sugar Candy

Equipment

Heavy 3 qt. sauce pan
Candy thermometer
A metal bowl large enough to serve as an ice bath for the 3 qt. sauce pan
wooden spoon
rubber candy mold

Ingredients

2 cups grade B maple syrup
1 tbs salted butter

Prep

Fill the saucepan halfway with water. Boil the water and make careful note of the temperature when you start to see medium size boiling-type bubbles coming up from the bottom of the pan. As with any cooked sugar confection, it is of utmost importance that you get the temperatures right. This recipe calls for the syrup to be boiled to 32°F above the boiling temperature of water, so you must know the temperature that water boils in your kitchen.

Instructions

1) Prepare the ice bath by filling the bowl with water to a depth of about an inch and then add lots of ice.
2) Grease the candy molds very lightly.
3) Melt butter in sauce pan over low heat
4) Add maple syrup and boil over medium-high heat until syrup reaches 32°F above the boiling temp of water.
5) When the syrup reaches the correct temperature, immediately, but gently, avoiding any agitation of the heated syrup, set the pot into the ice bath.
6) Let the syrup cool in the ice bath, undisturbed, to around 200°F then remove the thermometer from the pan.
Now the tricky part:
7) With a wooden spoon, stir the syrup until it starts to lighten, become opaque, lose it’s gloss and thicken a tiny bit.

I’ll be honest with you, determining exactly the right time to pour the syrup into the molds is the only difficult step. It needs to be barely starting to crystallize, but still pour easily like a thickened liquid. If you don’t stir enough, you’ll have maple caramel. If you stir too long, the syrup will harden before you get it into the molds. I’ve heard stories of people reclaiming their hardened syrup by adding a little bit of water and setting it over low heat until the sugar dissolves into liquid again. I’ve never done it myself, however, so I can’t speak to it’s effectiveness.

8) When the syrup reaches this state, work quickly to get it into the molds.
9) The candy should set up fairly quickly, within 5-10 minutes. When candy is completely set, pop the pieces out of the mold and let them cool completely if they haven’t already.
10) Store candy in an airtight container, as it can dry out quickly.

Special thanks to Mrs. Jorn for the advice and Nate Kauffman for another great photo.