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Maple Cream
Maple cream is one of the old new confections that boys and girls hold next to fudge. A recipe pronounced "perfectly lovely," allows a half pint of maple sugar to a half pint of cream. Cut or break the sugar in small pieces; mix with the cream and boil a few moments over the gas, if need be, until it begins to harden slightly. Have some pecan nut meats picked out and spread on a slightly buttered plate and pour the cream over. (It is good without nuts.) Just before it gets hard, mark in squares.
A two-ingredient maple candy with the timing left almost entirely to the cook's judgement. A thermometer supplies what the original assumes you already know by eye.
- The measurementsBoth quantities are by volume: a half pint is one cup. A cup of cream is 8 fluid ounces; the weight of a cup of maple sugar varies with how coarsely it is broken. Use heavy cream, not half-and-half, or the mixture takes far longer to reach temperature.
- Maple sugarHard cake maple sugar is still sold, usually in blocks or as granulated maple sugar, though it is now a specialty item rather than the pantry staple it once was. Granulated maple sugar can be substituted and needs no breaking up, but it packs more densely than broken chunks, so weigh it rather than measuring cup for cup.
- "Until it begins to harden slightly"This is the hinge. The mixture needs to reach the soft-ball stage, 236-240F on a candy thermometer, tested by dropping a little into cold water where it should form a ball that flattens between the fingers. Under-cooked it will never set; a few degrees over and it turns grainy and hard.
- "A few moments"Optimistic. Expect 10 to 20 minutes of steady boiling depending on your pan and the water content of the cream. Stir at the start to dissolve the sugar, then leave it alone.
- Boil-overCream and sugar climb the pan hard. Use a heavy saucepan at least three times the volume of the mixture and keep the heat moderate rather than fierce.
- "Over the gas"The gas range, as distinct from the coal or wood stove; gas cooking was spreading in towns and cities around the turn of the century.
- Marking in squaresScore the surface with a buttered knife while the slab is set but still warm, then break along the lines once cold. Wait too long and it shatters unevenly.
- YieldSomething under a pound of candy, cut into small squares; the original spreads it on a buttered plate rather than in a pan. Store airtight; maple candy softens in humid air.
Maple sugar, not syrup, was the ordinary form in which the sap crop was kept before airtight canning and refrigeration were common: boiled down past the syrup stage into hard cakes that stored for a year in the pantry and were shaved or broken up as needed. That is why this recipe calls for sugar to be cut and dissolved rather than syrup to be measured. The confection here is essentially a maple penuche or praline, and the mention of pecans points to the same family as the Southern pecan candies of the period. The name has since shifted: in modern usage "maple cream" more often means maple butter, a spreadable paste made by cooling and stirring boiled syrup with no dairy in it at all. The chatty framing of the entry, with its quotation of "perfectly lovely" and its appeal to boys and girls, is typical of turn-of-the-century candy chapters.