Making granulated MAPLE SUGAR at home!

I have been using maple sugar ALOT lately.....It replaces regular sugar with PERFECT results.No kidding, it isn't even a sacrifice and this is coming from someone who LOVES to bake sweet things and does often! Since we did our own maple syrup this year I have been making our own sugar! You can use maple syrup to replace sugar and in alot of things it works great,but in some things you can't have the extra liquid so that is where maple sugar is perfect! Now to BUY maple sugar is not very affordable unless you have alot of extra money to get rid of! Even just regular maple syrup is very expensive......SO....Here is how you make maple sugar! It is EASY,fun and pretty amazing to watch the transformation!! Try it!! I do suggest that you have someone to help stir but I have done it myself :) My arm was about to fall off but still.....:)

What you need:

1 qt maple syrup
A large pot
A candy thermometer reading to atleast 260
A wooden or stainless steel spoon
Cream or butter (Just a few dabs)

Now you are ready to begin!

Put your syrup in the pot and turn on HIGH heat.....YES.....HIGH heat! :) Do not stir it.....After it starts to boil you can put your thermometer in......You don't have to hold it in *constantly* but put it in every minute or so.....When it gets to 240 then you start to stir slowly......If at ANY time your syrup starts to really foam up and you are afraid of overflowing the pot,just put a dab of cream or butter in it! This should knock the boil right down.....SO....you are boiling the syrup on HIGH heat and stirring gently and you are creeping past 240......Just keep doing this.it will take several minutes from start to 260.......I think it took me around 15 minutes.....No matter,do NOT stop your syrup until it reaches 260 or you won't get the results you are desiring...Granulated sugar....As SOON as you hit 260 remove from heat and KEEP STIRRING.....You will now stir it until you have granulated sugar.....!

This is my syrup as soon as it was removed from the heat....

The rest of the pictures show the process of turning into sugar......You will feel and see your syrup start to get thick and lighter......Then you will see the texture change......You need to keep stirring until your sugar is DRY...Don't stop when it is wet or when it cools it will be HARD....

It will take about 15 minutes of stirring......When you are all done you can sift it to get the little hard lumps out....There will be some hard lumps.....Depending on what you are using your sugar for you can take them out or leave them in! They are wonderful "candy" or you can use them to sweeten your coffee/tea/hot cereal and a bunch of other things! The better you stir,the less lumps you will have! HAVE FUN!

Homeade crackers

This is an excellent recipe......I can't believe that these crackers taste so wonderful made with 100% whole wheat.....

3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup melted coconut oil or butter
1 cup of buttermilk
(if you don't have buttermilk you can add 2 TB of vinegar to water or milk and use that instead)

Mix above ingredients in a bowl until combined.....Cover with plastic wrap or waxed paper and leave on the counter overnight or for several hours......When you are ready to make your crackers , slightly flatten your ball of dough out on a floured surface.Sprinkle with :

1 tsp of salt and 1 1/2 tsps baking powder....knead several times until mixed in well....Roll dough out (I do half at a time) about 1/4 inch thick.....Cut into squares and prick with a fork a few times.Bake on a buttered cookie sheet at 425 for about 10 minutes....You want them just brown around the edges.....These are SOOOO good! I love to put butter and salt on them as soon as they are out of the oven and eat them warm......

A WONDERFUL variation.......

Before rolling out the dough knead in 2 cups of cheese and some herbs/pepper......They taste like a store bought ,cheese flavored cracker! Wonderful.....

Hazelnut caramel cheesecake.....

We had this today and it was absolutely delicious! It was the first time we tried the crust and we will definitely be using it again.....The filling I have made one time before....It is 100% as good as cheesecake using regular sugar.The topping I made up today and was SOOOO happy to find that it was just as delicious as my normal caramel topping made with brown sugar!

CRUST:

1 cup hazelnuts
1/2 cup butter or coconut oil
3/4 cup arrowroot flour
1/4 cup maple sugar
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp vanilla

FILLING:

4-8 oz packages cream cheese(softened)
4 eggs
1 cup maple sugar
1 TB vanilla

TOPPING:

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup maple sugar
1/4 cup cream
1/2 tsp vanilla


For crust.....In food processor,process hazelnuts until finely ground.....add the rest of the crust ingredients and bake at 350 for 15 minutes.Remove from oven and top with filling.....

For filling.....Beat cream cheese until smooth.Add sugar and beat until well combined.Add eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition.Beat in vanilla.Spoon into crust and bake at 350 for 20 minutes.....

For topping......Combine maple sugar and butter in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil.....Add cream and bring to a boil again....Boil for about a minute and then remove from heat....Add vanilla.Pour over cheesecake!

This is delicious warm but well chilled cheesecake (chilled for several hours) is the BEST!!

Enjoy your HEALTHY cheesecake!

I use fresh cream,homeade butter,real salt,organic eggs,real vanilla and our own maple sugar.I will be much happier when we have our own free ranged eggs (we buy organic from the neighbor but the are not free ranged) and my own homeade cream cheese! I have not made my own cream cheese yet...

Eliminating refined sugar and white flour....

We have always used *alot* of wheat flour....We have even ground our own for several years now.....My Mom was/is and excellent cook and taught me how to bake bread (and alot of other things!) from scratch...I really enjoy it and most of the things we eat *are* from scratch.BUT....we use WAY to much sugar and white flour.....Wheat just isn't the same in some things....Yes,soaking helps the texture etc. but it still isn't the same as white....Sugar is another things hard to replace.....I love to bake desserts and we all love to eat them.....BUT, we love our health better....I have *always* been very interested in health/herbs.I have lots of herb books,grow my own herbs and love to make my own medicines for my family.We rarely go to the doctor but treat our own illnesses with herbs/wholesome foods.We live on a farm,drink our own raw Jersey milk....make cheese,yogurt etc.We have a huge garden and preserve alot of our food.We eat local grown meat....I could go on and on....I am passionate about health and health topics.Still,white flour and sugar are something that we still eat to much of.They are two big things that don't belong in our healthy lifestyle! Two things that we have not managed to give up and they also happen to be two of the worse things for us!I feel that they are two VERY bad things in our diet and that we suffer alot of consequences from eating them....Which makes me feel guilty.... Some think I am crazy for feeling this way as everyone thinks that we eat *sooo* healthy and we do *compared* to alot of people....I have never believed in that .We can always make ourselves feel better by comparing our eating habits with *most* other people as sadly,most people out there are severely lacking knowledge about health and eat very unhealthy....We should instead,compare our eating habits to what is the RIGHT way to eat.The Lord designed certain foods for us to eat and we believe that the healthiest way to eat is to eat our foods in their natural state as much as possible....Sooooooo white flour and refined sugar do not belong!We have recently decided to quit using both.....100%....We will have some *rare* exceptions of course and down the road,after we break ourselves from these addictions I am sure I will use them both again OCCASIONALLY but for now we are done! It feels great! It has been a couple of weeks now and I am AMAZED at the delicious desserts that I have been able to make without either of them!!!! We are using only unrefined sugar and MAPLE SUGAR off of our own property, that we made, is the number one thing we are using! DELICIOUS!! I have alot of recipes I will be putting on my blog that are just delicious!

Delicious wraps

I wanted to write this down so I wouldn't forget what was in them. I made some whole wheat tortillas and filled them with :

spinache
radishes
mixed sprouts
cheese
flax seed oil
horseradish
cayenne
salt

My husband just loved them and when he loves something healthy I keep track of it! Don't get me wrong....he likes *alot* of healthy things but ever since eliminating white flour and refined sugar from our diet it makes cooking/baking a little more challenging......

Of course you could use any vegies/cheese with any seasonings and I think they would be delicious! The horseradish gives them an excellent flavor though!

Whole wheat tortillas

This is a delicious recipe that is easy to make! If you want to soak your flour first then make this the night before and add 1/2 cup of whey or 1/2 cup water w/ 2 TB lemon juice added and let it sit on the counter overnight or for several hours.....When ready to make just add a little extra flour to get it the right texture!

8 c. whole wheat flour
4 tsp. salt
1 c. of butter
3 c. water

Mix all ingredients.Form into gold ball sizes.Roll out flat into a circle.Cook on each side in a lightly buttered pan.Do not over cook.(about 1-2 minutes per side)

Fill with desired fillings!

These are sooo soft....even made with 100% whole wheat!!

Tapping Maple Trees!

We have a new and very addicting hobby.....

This year we finally tapped our trees.We put out 36 taps and so far, we have boiled down 360 gallons of sap from those taps! We have made over 9 gallons of syrup! I am so thrilled for many reasons but the biggest two are:

1. We have our *own* source,off of our *own* property of healthy,WHOLE, sugar!

2. It is SOOOO much fun! From start to finish it is absolutely fascinating.....

The buckets hanging on the trees and hearing the drip,drip,drip......The taste of the clear,sweet sap......The smell of the steam as the sap boils down and starts to become concentrated......
Tasting.....Finishing off the syrup....Watching the golden syrup pour of of the ladle and waiting to see the "apron" which lets me know it is done......Filling my jars....Letting the children lick all of the bowls,spoons,funnels......Putting my cooled jars of syrup away.....Pancakes with maple syrup that we made ourself!.....Making maple cream,sugar,candy and butter! I plan on posting recipes/methods for all of the things I have tried.....I am amazed at how many delicious things you can make out of just 100% maple syrup! This is a dream come true of mine!