Give Your Cooking Some Kick With Granulated Maple Sugar

By Philip Rozek

Granulated maple sugar is just a dried, table sugar-like form of maple syrup. It's easy to make, and you can use it for all kinds of things in the kitchen.

In colonial times, granulated maple sugar was easier to store because it was dried. It was also lighter in weight because all the water had been evaporated off. Today, it's practical because you don't have to refrigerate it the way you have to refrigerate a bottle of maple syrup once you open it.

It can be used for pretty much the same things as ordinary table sugar. You can put it on cereal or oatmeal, or you can put it in tea. Of course, it's a traditional glaze for meats, a great topping on cookies or coffee cake, or can be made into any thing your imagination allows.

You can turn maple syrup into granulated maple sugar by boiling the syrup down in the same way you'd make maple candy. Once you let the chunks of maple harden, cool, and dry for an hour or two, use a screen or something to grate it down into a fine powder.

The maple sugar might stick together and cake if you make it in a humid atmosphere or don't dry it out enough before storage, so the dryer you can get it before and after grinding it into powder, the better.

Once you have your finished product, a little bit can go a long way. Granulated maple sugar is very strong, so you don't need much to pack a lot of flavor into your foods. If you want, you can mix it in with normal table sugar to give the sugar a wonderful maple-flavored character.

Philip Rozek invites you to step into the world of maple syrup at http://www.maplesugarrecipe.com/articles.html where you can learn about organic maple syrup, Kosher maple syrup, Canadian maple candy. He'll even show you five reasons to make all-natural maple sugar candy at home.

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