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Maple Sugar
A Cook’s Secret Advantage
Highly versatile and infused with the distinctive maple flavour, maple sugar makes for a great addition to sweet and savoury dishes as well as tea and coffee.
The unique product has grown in popularity as a natural alternative to caster sugar and can be used as a like-for-like substitute in all your favourite recipes.
The history of maple sugar
Maple sugar has a long but largely unknown history. From as early as 1676, there are historical records of maple sugar being made using rudimentary iron pots.
In the years that followed, maple sugar was increasingly exported around the world, with the upper classes of France known to be a key market. At this time, maple sugar was actually more popular and well-known than maple syrup!
The product has continued to grow in popularity as a substitute for refined sugars derived from sugarcane. Through the years, researchers have also taken an interest in maple sugar for its supposed health benefits.
Today, maple sugar is used by chefs, bakers and chocolatiers in many of the world’s best restaurants. It’s equally loved by everyday baking enthusiasts for its rich, caramel-like flavour.
Learn more about the history of maple syrup below.
How is maple sugar made?
The process of making maple sugar has evolved since the early days of heating maple sap in an iron pot over an open fire.
Nowadays, vast networks of tubes are used to extract the sap from maple trees and transport it to the sugar shack. Here, it is boiled to reduce the water content until it thickens into a syrup.
The liquid continues to be boiled until it evaporates, eventually forming crystals. The crystals are finally filtrated to separate them into smaller grains.
The process can be adjusted to produce a range of granularities, from the fine texture of icing sugar to larger nuggets and chunks. It can even be compressed into blocks, ready for grating!
Learn more about the maple syrup production process below.
Baking with maple sugar
Maple sugar’s flavour naturally pairs well with many desserts, including cookies, cakes and meringues, but it can also be used to add a splash of sweetness to savoury dishes when used as part of a spice mix.
Not only that, but maple sugar also serves as a great sweetener for hot drinks. Whenever caster sugar is used in a recipe, maple sugar can be used in equal quantity as a natural substitute, lending the distinctive maple flavour to your favourite dishes.
Browse some of our recipes with maple sugar below or visit our maple syrup recipes page for the complete collection.
The Science Behind Maple
Researchers are learning about the natural composition of maple syrup and its potential benefits to human health. Find out what they know.