beating the snow blahs - part 2... snow candy

In the story of Little House on the Prairie with Laura Ingalls Wilder they talk about making maple candy with snow. So this snow-bound Mama with cabin fever decided to try it out. The only problem is that we didn't have pure maple syrup and I wasn't about to drag all my children to the store just to get it. So we improvise. We dug through the kitchen cabinets and found a few items that may or may not do what we want.
Our first little experiment was with Meijer brand Lite Maple Syrup (the kind that doesn't actually have real maple syrup listed in the ingredients - but is still yummy). We heated it until it boiled, the poured it over a tub full of snow, then stuck it outside in a snow pile in my subarctic yard for a few minutes. The result: a gummy substance that still needed a spoon to be eaten. But not bad.

Next we tried a simple fruit syrup using raspberries we picked last summer. We followed the same procedure, but left it outside longer. We ended up with a rather yummy fruit slushy. The partially mushed up berries that all stayed on top were the yummiest part.

Our final experiment was with Meijer Gold Blueberry Syrup (the kind that actually does have real blueberries). Following the same procedure we did with the other two types of syrup, we finally got the result I was looking for. A taffy like substance that my kids could actually pick up. We particularly enjoyed this one. I shoved my stiring spoon that was covered with hot syrup into the snow, and the kids enjoyed picking the blueberry taffy off of it. I can see cutting up fruit, dunking it in hot syrup and throwing it in a bucket of snow for a yummy snack. But that's another experiment for another day.

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