Maple Cream aka Maple Butter
Maple Butter, Maple Spread, Maple Cream, whatever you want to call it, now that you know it exists you're doomed. IT'S deadly DELICIOUS and it only takes one ingredient. Maple syrup.
If you've never had maple butter I need you to stand at attention and listen for once. You need to make it right now. There is only one ingredient - maple syrup. Maple butter is solid, creamy, spreadable maple syrup.
HOW EASY IS IT TO MAKE?
Like all delicious things it's kind of complicated. Here's what you need to do.
Pay close attention to the following instructions:
BOIL MAPLE SYRUP ... THEN STIR IT. Yup. That's all there is to it.
People overuse the word miracle all the time because they have no respect for the true meaning of it. If they can fit in their pants after Christmas they say it's a miracle. That's not a miracle, that's Spandex.
Maple butter however, is a maple miracle.
I make my own maple syrup by tapping my own maple tree and trees in my neighbourhood. So I've been trying to figure out a few different ways to use it beyond hiding behind a curtain and chugging it straight out of the bottle.
Enter Maple Cream. (Maple butter and maple cream are the same thing)
Table of Contents
What's maple cream aka maple butter?
It's maple syrup that's been (miraculously) transformed into a creamy, spreadable, butter-like consistency through a process of crystallization.
It's meant to be spread on English muffins, or toast or even ... on a grilled cheese with bacon and green apples.
I prefer to eat the maple butter by taping the jar to my head and licking my way to the bottom like an anteater.
So you want to make some?
Let's do this.
How to Make Maple Cream
What You Need
Wooden spoon
Icecubes
Maple Syrup
Bowl
2 pots
Thermometer
- Pour 3 cups of light to medium maple syrup into a pot.
Do it with flair.
2. Boil over medium/low heat WITHOUT STIRRING until the syrup reaches 235 F.
3. Immediately pour syrup into a pot set in an ice bath. Let stand WITHOUT STIRRING until the syrup cools to 100 F. (this will take around 10 minutes)
Please enjoy this Little House on the Prairie moment ... I didn't have enough ice for an ice bath so I went outside and pulled some frozen sap out of my sap buckets to use as ice.
4. Once the syrup has lowered in temperature to 100 F., remove the pot from the ice bath and start stirring.
Don't stir like a crazy person, you don't want to beat air into it. You just want to stir it. You will be stirring for a long time. Like, half an hour. I focused on watching television to get my mind off of my sore arm.
Eventually the syrup will start to lighten (after about 15 minutes of stirring) and then you have to keep stirring. Once it gets to be this very light colour, you don't have long to go.
5. Continue to stir the syrup until it goes from shiny to dull and holds its shape as you run the spoon through it. This means it's set up, the crystallization process is complete and you can STOP STIRRING!
6. Immediately pour it into your containers before it sets up too much to pour.
You now have maple cream which you stirred by hand which makes you a badass.
It's now that I let you know you can also use a stand mixer to do this. But then you won't be a badass with maple cream you'll just be some schmo with maple cream. The choice is yours.
To do it with a stand mixer, instead of stirring it by hand use the stand mixer set to "stir", or "low" with the paddle attachment. Whichever your stand mixer has as the lowest setting. Don't forget to scrape down the sides.
Maple butter will last for 6 months in the refrigerator. Which is a handy little tip in case you take a blow to the head and forget you own delicious Maple butter. (There would be no other explanation for not eating it all in a week.)
The difference in these two forms of maple syrup is amazing. It is the exact same thing, just the structure of it has changed through the heating and then stirring of it to achieve crystallization.
The crystals are so small your tongue can't detect them.
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Every person I've had taste this has had the same reaction. Their eyes roll into the back of their heads.
Traditional Maple Cream
Ingredients
- 3 cups Maple Syrup Light - Medium
Instructions
- Bring the Maple Syrup to a boil in a pot over medium/low heat. Boil until it reaches 235 degrees F. without stirring then remove from heat immediately. This will take around 15 minutes.
- While the syrup is boiling get an ice bath ready with a pot set in a bowl of ice.
- As soon as it has reached 235 degrees F, pour the boiled syrup into the pot set in the ice bath. Leave it until it the syrup drops in temperature to 100 degrees F. Don't disturb it at all while it rests.
- Once at 100 degrees F. remove the pot from the ice bath and start stirring. Don't stir vigorously ... you don't want to beat air into the syrup ... just stir it.
- Keep stirring. The syrup will start to lighten. Keep stirring. After about 30 minutes of stirring the syrup will be very light and resemble tahini but still be glossy with the consistency of cream. KEEP STIRRING.
- The syrup will now finish crystallizing, set up and be come duller. Once your spoon starts to leave paths in the syrup you can stop stirring.
- Pour the Maple Cream into your jars right away before it becomes to difficult to pour.
Notes
Nutrition
If you're wondering about that whole grilled cheese thing I mentioned at the beginning, this is the sandwich I'm thinking of trying it on. I realize maple syrup on a grilled cheese sandwich might sound gross, but it's not. It's a miracle.
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Haven't tried the recipe yet, BUT - my husband has talked about maple cream for the 46 years we've been married and I had no idea what it really was until very recently when I got to taste it for the first time. I had been getting him the maple candy that is very granulated- just not the same. I am so glad to have this recipe and I think I will surprise him with some at Christmas! Thank you so much!!!
Mine hardened after I put in in the jar. Did I not stir it enough, or too much?
I think it sounds more like you had improper temperature readings and boiled it too long. But not being there it's hard to tell. That would be my guess though. ~ karen!
My first batch hardened so I couldn’t even stir it. That batch I heated to 235 degrees. My second batch I heated to 225 which would do anything when I stirred it for 30 minutes. I put it back in my clean kettle and heated to 230 degrees and followed her same process and it worked great. 🤷🏼♀️
OK....time out...have mercy.....first Cadbury Easter Creme Eggs now Maple Cream....when do you post a blog on how to exercise off the calories you dumped on our oversized kiesters?
There is no way I would ever be able to put it in pretty jars. I would anteater my way to the bottom of the pot, licking through the copper to get every last drop!
Made me choke on my laughter!
Sorry, Gurl. I couldn't resist... hope you love it.
Anteater licking out the box of maple cream... LOL
I once bought a jar of maple cream while on a school field trip to Québec. I made the mistake of trying it. And then having just a little more. And a little more and a little more and maybe just a little more again. Sometimes I had my fingers in there without even realizing I was doing it, like I was in a maple trance. I managed to eat the entire thing before I got home - it was an 8 hour drive in a schoolbus after all. You'd think I'd never touch the stuff again but if I do break down and buy it, it doesn't stand a chance. I may have to try this but I am actually afraid to. Plus my only (successful) candy making experience has been Horehound, as it's so rare to find in stores and I love it as much as my mom and Grandmama do. Run that up your Prairie flagpole and see who salutes it!
Ooh, when I was a kid, whenever we went to Black Creek Pioneer Village I bought horehound, humbugs and licorice root. Pretty sure you can still get it there. If you're ever in the area...
Oh, good tip, thanks! And it’s on the new subway line too.
I did not need to know this, Karen.
I’m late to the party and I just read this while eating, scratch that, wolfing down toast for dinner and now I wish I had some maple cream to slather on it...drool
I love that "indigenous" is the type of cuisine you have this listed under. I've never heard of maple cream before. Probably because I'm not indigenous to Canada (or New England). Should I move to a place where I can tap my own trees, I'll be making this for sure!
Bah! Just go buy a bottle and make some! I'll be having an english muffin slathered with some in about half an hour. ~ karen!
I think I can kiss my diet goodbye! Thank you for sharing this! I'm now scouring the hidden areas in the pantry for decent maple syrup to make this 😀
Oh yeah, ditch the diet for sure, lol. Make some! ~ karen
The brother of a friend of mine makes small batch specialty maple syrups. I have ordered a bottle of his syrup which has been infused with bourbon from sitting in bourbon casks. I can't wait to try this with it!
That would be great! Maple and bourbon is a PERFECT combination. ~ karen!
I am so ok with schmo status. Gets the maple cream to my anteater tongue quicker...
When I was a kid, back in the late fifties, we'd go to grand-maman Leroux's farm almost every other week. For breakfast she would dole out this miracle spread which my siblings and I absolutely loved, no, read adored! My parents never bought the stuff so we only ever got it at my grandmother's. It happens that this spread was called Map-o-spread. It was a chemically produced maple spread. We LOVED it. We were kids. Later when I realized that I had been had and tasted the real thing, I swooned. I kid you not. Maple cream or butter has the power to make one swoon. So by all means stir away or buy it ready made. But as Karen wrote, stirring gives us badass status. At my age, badass is good.
I love on your recipe card the cuisine is Indigenous. As it should be....
Beautiful! The recipe and the photographs. Thanks!
I want to do this but I will have to find light syrup to buy. Do you think it would work the same with honey? I have always wondered how they make creamed honey.
I wonder if honey could be altered in a similar way?
What about maple pecan ice cream? That sounds like a miracle waiting to happen!
Totally a miracle :)