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Maple: Sugar Sauce
Melt over a slow fire, in a small tea-cup of water, half a pint maple sugar; let it simmer, removing all scum; add four tablespoons butter mixed with a level tea-spoon flour, and one of grated nutmeg; boil for a few moments, and serve with boiled puddings. Or, make a "hard sauce" of one table-spoon butter to two of sugar.
A pudding sauce built on maple sugar rather than syrup, thickened lightly with a butter-and-flour paste. Two adjustments matter: the sugar measurement is by volume in a dry state, and the nutmeg is far heavier than modern palates expect.
- Half a pint of maple sugarThis is a dry volume measure, i.e. 1 cup of grated or shaved maple sugar; granulated maple sugar runs roughly 7 ounces to the cup, though grated sugar from a cake will weigh less. Cakes of maple sugar were commonly shaved or grated as needed. If you buy granulated maple sugar, weighing is steadier than scooping, since the packing differs.
- A small tea-cup of waterA Victorian teacup is usually reckoned at 4 to 6 fluid ounces, and "small" suggests the low end. Start with about 1/2 cup (4 fl oz); the sauce should be pourable but not thin, and you can add a spoonful more water at the end if it tightens too much.
- Slow fireLow heat until the sugar has fully dissolved before any simmering begins. Undissolved crystals on the pan wall will seed the syrup and turn the finished sauce grainy.
- The scumReal maple sugar throws a pale foam of protein and mineral matter. Lift it off with a spoon rather than stirring it back in, or the sauce will taste faintly muddy and look cloudy.
- NutmegA level teaspoon of grated nutmeg in a cup of sauce is very strong by current taste and can be numbing. A quarter teaspoon, grated fresh, gives the intended perfume.
- The butter and flourWork the 4 tablespoons butter and the teaspoon of flour into a smooth paste cold, then whisk it into the simmering syrup in pieces. Dropped in as a lump it will separate and leave a slick of butter on top.
- Boil for a few momentsOne to two minutes of gentle bubbling is enough to cook the raw taste out of the flour. Longer and the syrup reduces toward candy, setting hard as it cools on the plate.
- The hard sauce variantOne part butter to two parts sugar, creamed together cold and chilled. The text says only "sugar," though maple sugar is the obvious choice given the heading. It is a separate sauce rather than a step, meant to melt over a hot pudding, and needs no cooking at all.
- YieldRoughly a cup and a half of sauce, enough for a boiled or steamed pudding for a small party. It thickens on standing and can be loosened over low heat.
Maple sugar, not syrup, was the household form of maple sweetening through most of the nineteenth century: it kept without spoiling, traveled in cakes and loaves, and was grated as needed. In the Ohio Valley and the Northeast it was in earlier decades often the cheaper sweetener, though by the 1870s refined cane sugar was cheap and widely available and maple's price advantage was largely local, and cookbooks of the period treat it as an everyday substitute rather than a luxury. Buckeye Cookery came out of that world, and its sauce chapter is full of pours for boiled and steamed puddings, the heavy suet-and-flour desserts that dominated winter tables and depended entirely on their sauce for interest. The alternative "hard sauce" at the end reflects the same logic in a colder form, a creamed butter-and-sugar paste that melts into the hot pudding, and it is a close parallel to the brandy butter still served with Christmas pudding.