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Maple Sugar Filling for Cake
Break into small pieces sufficient maple sugar to make one cup. Put it into a saucepan with one cup of sweet cream and one cup of coffee sugar. Heat slowly, stirring occasionally, until the maple sugar is entirely dissolved. Boil steadily without stirring until, when a little is tried in very cold water, it can be rolled into a soft ball between the thumb and finger. Take at once from the fire, stir in a cup of chopped pecans, let stand for five minutes, then stir slowly until it begins to thicken, and spread between the layers of cake.
This is a maple-pecan fudge in frosting form, and it behaves exactly like fudge: everything depends on hitting the right temperature and then beating it at the right moment.
- The hinge: soft-ball stageThe cold-water test corresponds to 236-240F on a candy thermometer. Below that the filling never sets and runs out of the cake; above it, the filling turns grainy and stiff before it can be spread.
- Coffee sugarA coarse, large-crystal granulated sugar once sold for sweetening coffee. Ordinary granulated white sugar is a direct substitute, cup for cup.
- Sweet cream"Sweet" here means fresh rather than soured or cultured. Use heavy cream; anything lighter has too much water and lengthens the boil considerably.
- Maple sugarHard cake maple sugar is still made, usually sold in blocks or as granulated maple sugar. A cup of granulated maple sugar works, though it dissolves faster and you can skip the breaking-up step.
- Do not stir while boilingThe instruction is deliberate. Stirring a boiling sugar syrup can drag crystals from the pan walls back into the mixture and set off graining, producing a gritty filling. Wash down any crystals with a wet brush instead.
- The five-minute rest, then beatLetting the pan stand undisturbed before stirring is what gives fine crystals and a smooth set. Stir only until the gloss dulls and the mass thickens, then spread immediately; it firms fast.
- Timing against the cakeHave the layers baked and fully cooled before you start. There is no waiting once the filling begins to thicken.
- YieldRoughly two cups, enough to fill and lightly top a two- or three-layer 8- or 9-inch cake. Leftovers can be dropped in spoonfuls onto waxed paper as pralines.
Maple sugar was the cheaper sweetener across much of the northern United States and Canada well into the nineteenth century, since it could be made on the farm while cane sugar had to be bought; that relationship is generally said to have reversed in time, with maple sugar becoming the more expensive, more regional treat. Recipes like this one sit at that turning point, pairing maple with bought cane sugar and with pecans, a Southern nut whose wider availability is often credited in part to the railroads. The method is straight confectionery practice: a cooked syrup taken to soft ball and beaten to a fine crystal, which is to say fudge, spread between cake layers rather than cut into squares. Cookbooks of the period moved freely between the two, and layer-cake fillings of the 1890s and 1900s often appear to be candy recipes stopped a moment early.