Mock Maple Syrup — Made From Potatoes
Recently I have been looking through some books I hadn’t read in a while, and in a little book about their life in the wilderness by Bradford and Vena Angier, I came across the chapter where they write about making a realistic tasting maple syrup from potatoes and sugar.
Peel 6 medium sized potatoes. Boil these uncovered in 2 cups of water until but one cup of fluid remains. Remove the vegetables for use any way you want. Stirring the liquid until it reaches the boiling point again, slowly add one cup of white sugar and one cup of brown sugar. Once this has entirely dissolved, take the pan off the heat to cool slowly.
… But bottle the syrup and tuck it away in a cabinet for several days to mature. Taste it again at the end of that time and see if you are not pleasantly amazed.
We were still amazed that morning. The flavor was almost beyond comparison, a phantom bouquet that haunted our taste buds; something to be savored very deliberately and lingeringly. It tasted to us now exactly like prime maple syrup, and we’d both been reared in maple syrup country.
–from the book Wilderness Wife, by Bradford and Vena Angier
It’s an interesting idea, isn’t it?
Filed Under Simple Living
Comments
Comment by Shelly:
This syrup is so good and so inexpensive compared to the store bought stuff. I would have never imagined syrup from potatoes! The only problem I have with it is the sugars crystallize when the syprup cools. What do I need to be doing different?
Comment by Shirley:
It IS good, isn’t it… and everyone who tastes it is always so surprised that it is made from potatoes. I have not had a problem with crystallization, but when I reread the Vena Angier instructions on making this syrup that I posted, I realized she said to boil the liquid and then add the sugar. When I made it, I added the sugar, stirred until the sugar was completely dissolved, and then boiled it. I think this might make a difference.
Please leave a comment!