I live in Vermont and we have been making maple syrup for 32 years, and my husband's family has been making it "forever." There is a relatively new grading system for syrup. I would use "Grade A: Dark (color) and Robust (flavor), which used to be called Grade B. It is recommended for baking and recipes that call for a heavy maple flavor. Maple syrup also is not as sweet as honey or sugar, so you might need more syrup than honey, depending on your sweetness preference. I do not like very sweet scones, and when I make maple walnut scones, I use 1/3 cup of maple syrup. But I also brush more maple syrup on top of the warm scones immediately when they come out of the oven. You could also try using maple sugar, which I think is a bit sweeter, or add some maple flavoring as Len suggested. We use only the Dark, Robust syrup in our house, as most Vermonters do, even for pancakes or over ice cream.
I've also found that maple syrup does not seem to have a strong flavor in baked goods and often requires frosting. My maple shortbread recipe (posted on this site) and the KAF maple biscotti are about as much maple flavor as I seem to be able to get in baked goods. Len's suggestion to use some maple flavor is a good one.
A quarter cup of maple syrup is only 2 ounces. I have subbed a half cup of maple syrup for all the sugar in Quaker Oats Low Fat Chewy Fruit & Oat Bars and it still doesn't have a pronounced maple flavor. To up the maple flavor, try adding a 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon maple flavor (available from King Arthur as well as other outlets).
I spent the last week of June in Canada which is why I haven't posted for awhile. After seeing all the maple syrup there and in Vermont, I wanted to invent my own oatmeal-maple quickbread.
This is what I tried, and I would like advice on improvements.
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup oil
1 egg
1/4 cup maple syrup ( I used the light colored syrup )
~ 1 cup walnuts ( all that was left in the bag )
Mix the oatmeal and buttermilk and let soak for a couple of hours. Mix the flour, baking soda and baking powder together. Mix the oil, egg and maple syrup together. Combine the oatmeal mixture and the egg and oil mixture. Mix in the flour mixture. Mix in the walnuts
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, bake in an oiled 8inch cast iron skillet for 35 minutes or until done.
This is very mild tasting and has almost no maple syrup flavor. Breads made with honey are sweeter. I am planning on trying again with dark maple syrup to see if that adds more flavor and reducing the walnuts to 1/2 cup.
Any advice? It would be messier but I am thinking of a maple frosting which would concentrate all the maple flavor in one spot.
Mike--The recipe called for combining hot water with the cornstarch and sugar and stirring until it thickened. The berries were then added, but the recipe said to cook only until the berries are hot and not to boil them.
I will add maybe 1/2 tsp. of lemon juice next time I make the recipe (next year when the black raspberries return). I wonder what people who are trying to cook local, in an area where citrus is not local, and trying to cook in season, would do.
At the farmers’ market yesterday, the folks at Hole in the Woods Farm shared a black raspberry cobbler recipe with me, even though I bought potatoes. (We have our own supply of wild black raspberries.) I baked a half recipe on Sunday (we only had 3 cups of black raspberries left), but of course I made a few changes. I left the filling alone, but for the topping, I used ½ Cup AP flour and ½ Cup whole wheat pastry flour rather than all AP. Instead of using 1-1/2 tsp. baking powder, I used 1 tsp. baking powder and 1/8 tsp. baking soda, as the recipe uses buttermilk, and I wanted to offset its acidity. The original recipe is baked in a cast iron skillet, but I don’t have one available right now, so I used a 9-inch Emile Henry deep pie dish. I brought the topping together into a ball, then flattened it into a circle 5-1/2 inches in diameter. I cut it into 8 wedges. I arranged those over the topping. As I was baking just a half batch, I baked for 30 minutes, until the topping was lightly browned. It is good, but I think the filling did not have as nice of a flavor as my jam. Maybe I should use something other than cornstarch as the thickener?
Here's the filling ingredients for the half recipe:
1/4 Cup + 2 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. cornstarch
1/4 Cup + 2 Tbs hot water (3 oz.)
3 Cups black raspberries
1/2 Tbs. butter
After leftovers for two nights, it is time to cook again. Whole chicken legs were 59 cents per pound at the grocery, so I bought a package with six, and at my husband's request, I’m making Maple Glazed Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Rosemary (sheet pan dinner—and yes, I know that I also cooked it last week), to be accompanied by steamed green beans from our garden.
We are out of bread, so Saturday afternoon is devoted to baking two loaves of my Buttermilk Barley-Whole Wheat Grape Nuts Bread. The recipe began as the one Dachshundlady posted as Grape Nuts Bread (which is on this site), but I’ve been substituting in some buttermilk and some whole wheat flour for a while now, and I have posted a Buttermilk Grape Nuts Bread that is my variation (both a single and a double loaf recipe). I’ve now started substituting in ¾ Cup barley flour as well, and we like, so I’m giving this version its own name. I also cut the salt to 2 tsp. after looking at the sodium content of Grape Nuts.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by
BakerAunt.
Last week, I bought zucchini at the farmers' market. I baked the KAF recipe for Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread on Friday afternoon. I know from having baked this recipe several times before that the 1/3 Cup of honey in the recipe is too strong for my taste, and I have looked for ways to reduce it. (I'm not crazy about honey and chocolate together.) Last time I used 2/3 Cup light brown sugar and 2 Tbs. honey, but I still felt the recipe needs work. This time, I wondered if perhaps the additional brown sugar in a chocolate recipe also gave an off-taste, so I used the original ½ Cup light brown sugar and added ¼ Cup granulated sugar. I reduced the honey to 2 Tbs. (I think it might be there to deter staling—something Cass always told us.) To make the recipe slightly healthier, I substituted 2/3 Cup white whole wheat flour for that much of the KAF flour, I added ¼ Cup powdered milk, and 1 Tbs. flax meal. I used Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips. (Hey, dark chocolate is healthy.) 🙂 I baked them for 30 minutes in the U.S.A. 8-well mini-loaf pan. They rose a bit over the rim, but it works well. We ate one of the little loaves for dessert, and we liked the taste and texture. I’ll freeze at least half the batch for “emergency” desserts.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.
Navlys--We actually had planned to return home via Gainesville, visit a couple we know there, and shop the TJ. However, the wife fell, broke a leg, and had to have emergency surgery the day before we left, so we went back the way we came (and there was no TJ on that route).
I made pizza with the TJ’s crusts . I boiled sausages in expired apple juice and used them on the pizza with pesto, Peppi’s Pizza sauce (yum) mozzarella,red pepper and pineapple.
On another note if we move we won’t be near a TJ’s. Boohoo!
I don’t need vanilla and I have their salsa & pico blend (which I really like) but as usual I am so tempted. We are supposed to be downsizing so I have to use restraint ?
We stopped at the North Market in Columbus OH on the way home from Pittsburgh and I bought some veal. I used it tonight to make Veal Zurich (veal in a white wine and cream sauce), served on spaetzle.
Dinner was more sweet corn, steamed broccoli, pan-fried hamburgers (my husband did not want to grill in the heat) on Wheat-Oat Flax Buns, and for me, a side salad of sliced onion, tomato, and cucumber with a sugar-cider vinegar marinade. (Thank you, S. Wirth!)
I do need to work on my hamburger pan-frying technique. I don't think that I've cooked a hamburger since my single days, and then I used the microwave....
The ground beef we bought at the farmers' market was excellent, and I will buy from that vendor again.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.
On this Independence Day, I baked the KAF recipe for Wheat-Oat Flax Buns, with my changes, this morning. We are planning to grill hamburgers tonight.
Re: First Clear Flour. I may regret not having Mike pick up a bag for me, although storing 50 pounds right now might have been an issue, as we continue to wait on our contractor so that we can get the remodeling done--and then have a second good refrigerator. (The one we brought with us is in the apartment and working great, but the one that came with the house is on its way out, and we are hoping it will have enough life in it, by the time our contractor is ready to start, that we can qualify for the $50 rebate from the power company for removing a working inefficient refrigerator.)
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This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.
