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Maple Mousse 1/2 gallon maple syrup can thanks to Jeanette 1 1/2 cups maple syrup 2 egg whites 2 cups whipping cream few grains salt Beat the egg whites stiff. Cook syrup for 5 minutes. Pour on whites while beating constantly. Cool. Whip cream firm and fold in. Put in freezing trays for about 3 hours. Note: One used to be able to find pans the size of the pans that were used to make ice cubes but 3-inches deep instead of 1-inch and with straight sides. Evelyn also used to make maple mousse from the recipe on the can. Other maple recipes: Jack wax: find clean snow and pack it into a big pan - for instance, a 9"x13" cake pan. Boil maple syrup in a deep pan, watching it carefully, until it measures 230o on a candy thermometer. If it threatens to boil up and over, add a tiny bit of oil, butter or cream and it will immediately retreat. When the syrup is ready, pour it on the snow in ribbons. It is immediately ready to wind up with a fork and enjoy. In Vermont they serve dill pickles and doughnuts with jack wax. At Aunt Margaret's, when you had to ask for water you were done. Maple Cream: boil syrup to 236o. As above, use a deep pan and a candy thermometer. Allow the syrup to cool to room temperature by putting the pan in a sink-full of cold water. Don't stir it before it is cool or it will turn to sugar too quickly and be grainy instead of smooth and creamy. When it is cool, stir it with a wooden spoon until it begins to lose its sheen and turn opaque - it should end up with a spreadable consistency (it is really good on toast). Put it in small containers with lids. If after a while it separates with syrup rising to the top, just stir it back in. It will be fine again. Maple Sugar: as above, boil the syrup, measuring it with a candy thermometer, to 240o which is a soft ball stage. (These temperatures are based on water boiling at 212o F. If yours boils at a different point, adjust accordingly). Again, cool the syrup without stirring until it is at room temperature. At that point, stir (or beat) it with a wooden spoon until it starts to turn to sugar (just like fudge). If you plan to cook with it, just turn it out and break it up as you need it. (In that case, grainy matters less and you could probably stir it warm.) If you want patties, put it, quickly, into something like a muffin tin. I think you can find nice molds too. I don't remember what Aunt Margaret used but these recipes were hers. Evelyn made maple sugar cookies with more or less pulverized maple sugar in the dough and a small solid piece on top - very good. The cookies were a Scottish way to use up last year's syrup just before the new syrup was ready, although I think everything else was made at the beginning when the syrup was fresh. My father always took orders for gallons of new syrup from all his siblings every spring. Some of his patients had sap houses and he liked to buy it from them. One year Jim and Orin tapped a couple of trees in front of our house at 31 Main, collected it in pails and boiled it down over a wood fire on the fireplace in the back yard. I think they did that just once. It takes 50 gallons of sap to come up with one gallon of syrup. |
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