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Maple Tapper Blog Learn About Maple Tapping! Menu Back to Home Page | Shop Maple Tapping Supplies Here Scroll down to content Posts Posted on February 22, 2023 March 9, 2023 Maple Carrot Cake Muffins Recipe Maple Carrot Cake (Healthy Version) This high-protein, gluten-free, high-nutrient dish is great for breakfast on the go and lunchbox snacks. Print Recipe Prep Time 30 mins Cook Time 40 mins Course Breakfast, Dessert, Snack Cuisine American Servings 6 servings Ingredients 10 large carrots peeled and cut into 2" chunks ½ cup pure maple syrup 1 cup old-fashioned oats 10 medium eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp ground nutmeg 2 tsp ground cinnamon 1 tsp baking powder 1 cup chopped nuts or raisins (optional) Instructions Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9” x 13” pan or line muffin tins with papers. Combine everything but nuts and raisins in a food processor or powerful blender. You can slightly cook carrots to make this go smoother but it’s not necessary. Blend until smooth and stir in nuts and raisins if using. Pour into pan or tins. Bake until center is set about 45 minutes. Let cool. Cut into slices and serve topped with pure maple syrup, nut butter, honey or fresh fruit. Store in refrigerator. Makes approx. 6 servings. Keyword carrot cake recipes, cooking with pure maple syrup, healthy carrot cake, high protein breakfast recipes Posted on February 2, 2023 February 23, 2023 Maple Sap DIY Cooking Methods Maple sap cooking methods range from super simple to full-blown sugar shacks with high level equipment. So where do you start as a home sugarmaker just wanting to boil a few gallons of sap into pure maple syrup? This article will walk you through the most common DIY, proven, at-home cooking methods so you can get ready for the season. Steamy kettle of maple sap over wood fire. Start with Safety Before we get any further into the boiling, let’s talk safety. During this process, you will be working with fire or flammable gases and handling large quantities of boiling hot, sticky syrup. Please be careful, especially if children are helping you. Wear long sleeves, pants, and gloves to protect from splatters. Don’t try to pour sap from large pans without help. Make sure you have a first aid kid and a bucket of water or hose nearby for emergencies. Why Do We Boil Sap? Maple sap is approximately 95% water and your job is to remove the water and concentrate the sugar into pure maple syrup. The flavor of your finished syrup is created by the caramelization of the sugars during the boiling process. The longer the sap is boiled in the pan, the darker and stronger the flavors become. Along with the tree qualities and storage/collection issues, flavor can also be affected by the cleanliness of your cooking and storage systems. Stainless steel is the best choice for boiling and glass jars or bottles are the best. Indoors or Outdoors You will be tempted to boil your sap down on the kitchen stove – be warned that everything around the pot will be sticky! Even the steam coming off your pot contains tiny bits of sugar which will cling to every surface. Instead of dealing with a sticky mess, make a space for yourself outside. You’ll need overhead shelter in case it starts to rain or snow or the weather turns cold while you’re boiling. This is why many build a sugar shack” but a temporary outdoor space with a tarp ready to cover overhead works just fine. For small batches you can finish your syrup inside on the kitchen stove. Maple Sugar Shack with steam coming out the chimney. What Type of Cooker or Fuel Source The boiling down process will take many, many hours and greatly depends on how much sap you’re starting with. The choice really depends on your access to wood or propane, how much space you have, and how much syrup you plan to make. The key is surface area – the more surface area in the pan, the faster water will evaporate. This is why most people choose an oblong flat pan to boil in. Small batches (10 gallons sap per year) can be cooked on a single-burner propane cooker (such as an outdoor fryer/turkey cooker). Larger batches require longer boils and bigger pans and mostAnd after a few weeks, you’ll have a year’s supply of syrup and the skills you need to do this every year. And with all the great resources here at Maple Tapper, you’ll always have support! We’re tapping, too, and we’re on call during the whole season plus we’ve shared all that we know in this blog, in our books (included in most kits), and in our new video course ( here ). Are you ready to do this? Here’s three simple preseason steps you can do right now: Step #1 (time required: approximately 15 minutes): Assemble your tools (most of which you probably have in the garage and kitchen already). Here’s what you’ll need: Well-charged cordless drill (or manual hand brace) with a 5/16” wood-boring drill bit marked at 1 ½” (with marker or masking tape) from the tip A small hammer Spiles (the technical term for tap!) and either tubing or an all-in-one bucket system. The tubes are nice because they store flat but it’s totally your choice. ( Shop gear here ) Collection containers such as buckets or gallon jugs with lids. Avoid containers that have held milk, pickle juice, or oily substances and do not wash with dish soap – these all can impart weird flavors to your sap. Syrup making filters – try our one-quart, DIY filters ( here ) Kitchen utensils; pots for cooking; a way to boil your sap (more on that at this article: Maple Sap DIY Cooking Methods”; and jars with sealable lids (Mason jars with lids/rings work well).. Step #2 (time required 5 minutes or less): Find a tree or two. The best choice for the sweetest syrup is to tap a sugar (or hard) maple tree but you can also try silver maple, box elder, or even birch (much more info on that in our book.). The best way to identify a sugar maple is to go out in the fall and a) look at the leaf color – sugar maples typically have the most colorful red, orange, or yellow leaves or b) look for the seeds (those little helicopter” seeds we played with as kids). Hard maples drop seeds in the late summer or early fall and soft maples drop seeds in spring and early summer. Over the entire season, you can expect approximately 10- to 12-gallons of sap per taphole which will boil down to about one quart of syrup. Trees can handle more than one tap but make sure you can handle more than 10 gallons! You do not have to own a plot of land in the country to find maple trees. Town syrup is just as sweet as country syrup – in fact, recent research has shown that boulevard” grown trees actually produce more sap than forest-grown trees because they have more space to grow. The one note here: don’t tap trees that live in areas treated with chemicals such as pesticides or herbicides used on lawns. Step #3 (time required 30 seconds per day): Watch the weather. Now comes the waiting and watching portion of this hobby (we know, this is kind of like other parts of winter.) What you’re looking for is a forecast that includes a pattern of cold nights but warming days. Sap starts to run when nighttime temps fall below freezing but daytime temps get into the 40°Fs. This usually happens around January or February and once you see this pattern forecasted for the next week or so, it’s time to get out there and tap your trees. Don’t try to get a head start by tapping before this weather pattern emerges – that could cause your spile to freeze inside the taphole which could damage the tree. Tapping is so quick you don’t need to do it ahead of time! Step #4 (a few weeks, hopefully): Once the sap runs, you’ll go out every day and collect it at the tree. Depending on how you’re cooking, you’ll spend a few hours boiling (this is literally just boiling water so all you need to do is keep an eye on it and keep the heat on). The full boiling, filtering, and bottling process is covered in this article: How to Make Maple Syrup” . Posted on January 23, 2023 February 2, 2023 How to Measure Sugar Content...