Vermont Maple Products

The processes we use to make our Vermont maple cream, maple candy, and maple sugar are all basically the same. We start with pure Vermont maple syrup, usually a lighter grade produced earlier in the season. Maple syrup is about 66-67% sugar and is a thick liquid at room temperature. We take this syrup and boil off additional water to create what is known as a supersaturated solution. These solutions are still liquid at high temperatures, but will solidify at room temperature. We cool the heated mixture and as it cools we churn it to promote crystal growth. It then cools to room temperature and solidifies into the delicious treats we enjoy so much.

The key to making the best tasting maple candy, cream, and sugar is to control the crystal  growth.   The sugar in maple syrup is mainly sucrose molecules.  You can think of these molecules as Lego's building blocks.  As you heat maple syrup and remove more water, these Lego's blocks still stay dissolved in the water.   But as soon as you start to cool there are too many of these Lego blocks for the amount of water, and they come together.   If the Lego blocks come together in a nice organized pattern it becomes a sugar crystal.   Your tongue can detect the size of these crystals.  To get a nice creamy texture in our maple cream and candy you want many smaller crystals and not fewer larger crystal.  You control the number and size of these crystals by the rate you cool your supersaturated solution and how and when you churn it. 

Since all of the processes involve boiling water off of maple syrup it's important to carefully control the exact amount of water you're removing.  The boiling point of water changes each day based on the atmospheric pressure.  We calibrate all our thermometers to this boiling point of water on a daily basis, then boil to a fixed number of degrees over this boiling point of water.  The table shows how many degrees over the boiling point we take each of our maple confections.