Both Mr. Handsome and I grew up reading about Laura Ingalls Wilder in the iconic book series Little House in the Prairie. One memory that always stood out to me was when Pa made candy by pouring boiling maple syrup into the snow.
Like most of the country, we had a cold front come in this week with a lot of snow, much more than Nashville usually sees at one time. We thought we would try our hand at candy making, using the maple syrup that Mr. Handsome made last year from trees on our property. It’s really quite simple. You boil maple syrup up to 235 degrees Fahrenheit in a cast iron pan and pour it into tightly packed snow. After about two minutes, it becomes a taffy like consistency. You can then wrap it around a Popsicle stick or just eat it with your fingers.
Our experience was that you have to eat it pretty quickly or it starts to melt back into maple syrup. Now don’t tell your dentist you made this because boy does it stick to your teeth! But it’s a fun snow day treat and tastes delicious!
lol, ‘don’t tell your dentist’ i see what you did there!
That sounds like fun. We’ve never tried it but perhaps our next snow storm we could do this. My girls grew up on Little House books and I have The Little House Cookbook but I’ve only made a couple of recipes from it.
Ha, I was going to say the part about the dentist. I see how he’s drumming up business!
But Ellie, YOUR dentist made it!
Interesting that this year the Bates I love you day theme is little house on the prairie. Did you know that or is it in the (cold) air there?
They can just wear their old clothes! No “costumes” necessary.
Have you tried snow ice cream?
The recipe is simple:
2 cups of Snow
1/4 cup Milk
1T Sugar
1tsp vanilla
Add Milk to Bowl…Scoop 1T Sugar to Bowl…Pour 1tsp Vanilla to Bowl…Dump in Snow…Stir.
We’ve tried a basic snow ice cream (snow and maple syrup). This one sounds tasty though. We will have to give it a go. Thanks, Dawn!
I forgot to say I did attempt the snow ice cream way back after i saw it on the Duggar Show with my nieces at Christmas but in Minnesota we ended up not having much that Christmas( 2023 was more unusual because we had rain instead of snow and we hit a record of 50s temperature!!!) and it really was not the fresh clean variety so we had to pass because it was more packed down and not clean and fluffy.
You could do both and compare…my recipie I gave you that I found seemed a little more simple and less dairy ingredients…I am lactose intolerant but I found for me it is more quanity of dairy ingested vs dairy in general. Only 1/4 cup milk in whole recipie not a lot and of course I eat a smaller amount at a time!!!!!
I got to try this nearly 30 years ago on a high school trip to Quebec. We went to a place where they served a full traditional meal and almost everything used maple syrup as a topping! We went outside after for a (very cold) hayride, and there were troughs of snow around a fire pit holding strips of boiled syrup we could scoop up with a stick. It was so good…and very addicting! I probably only slept that night because I was so tired from snow tubing earlier in the day! Always wanted to try it again…
Dawn, I would love to have my Moma’s snow cream just one more time. She made it custard-style.
Sounds Great…Memories are Special and should always be kept close!!!!!
I don’t think I’d eat snow these days. The atmosphere it falls through is not very clean, and snow acts as a scrub brush, bringing all those particles and chemicals to the ground with it. If parents freak out about kids only eating organic and staying away from harmful chemicals, it may be best that they avoid eating snow and things in contact with snow. No, it’s not going to kill you, but yes, it can be “dirty.”
I remember once when I was little my father made this for me when I wasn’t feeling well. He called if taffy on snow.