Homemade Maple Syrup
History: This is the only homemade syrup in my book. It tastes very similar to real maple syrup and nothing like the icky sticky gluey store-bought variety. (ie high-fructose corn syrup with a dash of imitation maple flavoring). I have a funny story of when I was little. My sisters and I made some pancakes for breakfast one weekend morning, and got out a jar of what looked like syrup from the fridge (it was always stored in a glass jar with a metal lid). After heating it up and pouring it on our pancakes, we were TOTALLY grossed out by how they tasted! We couldn’t figure out what we had done wrong (did we add a cup of salt instead of a tsp?) until we realized it was the “syrup!” It wasn’t syrup after all, it was leftover au jus from the roast beef sandwich dinner the night before! Ew!
RECIPE
Boil 1 cup of water in a saucepan. Stir in 2 cups of sugar and turn off the heat. Add 1 tsp maple extract (Mapeline). Voila! You are done.
Refrigerate leftover syrup for any length of time (ok a year might be too long). If you are frugal and health-conscious like my mom and you like it to be more like sweet water then you can add less sugar, like 1 1/2 cups. (soggy waffles are not my thing though) Yum!
Charged With Chocolate 