Eat: Sugar on Snow - Maple Syrup Candy {Part 3 in our Tell Me a Story Series}

Right now we are in the middle of our PEG "Tell Me a Story" series, and today's post should please everyone's senses as we connect food to literature.  The more you can bring a story to life for your children, the more they will relate to it and retain it.  Sounds like a perfect excuse to make some maple syrup candy to me!!

Like many people, I remember reading the Little House on the Prairie books as a child.  I think my boys are still a bit young for them, but a few weeks ago, in preparation for a coming snow storm, I got out the book Little House in the Big Woods.  I read them part of the first chapter to introduce Laura and her family, and then I read them the sections about making Christmas candy out of syrup, and the chapter about making sap into maple syrup.  It was fun to talk about how things were a long time ago!  We talked about how Laura's house is different than our house and whether or not they would enjoy living in the big woods, with bears and wolves all around.

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Also in preparation for making our own maple syrup candy, we watched this video about how maple syrup is made.  They even demonstrate the candy making too!

Our snow "storm" wasn't really very big, so I went out early in the morning to collect some snow in a dish that looked relatively clean.  I would have sent the boys out to do it if there had been more snow, but alas, this was not the case.  After the kids had had some fun playing outside, I invited them in to warm and up and make some candy.  No complaints there!

Here's how we did did it:

--Put one cup pure maple syrup in a sauce pan over medium heat.

--Bring up to a temp of 235, the "soft ball stage".  I learned that you can test to see if it has reached the soft ball stage by dropping a small amount into a cup of cold water.  If it stays together in a lump instead of dissolving, you're there!  There was 1/2 cup of syrup left after we boiled it, so that gave me a good chance to talk about how the volume of syrup had been reduced by the boiling. The syrup should be thicker than when you started.

Sometimes a watched pot does boil!!

Next, I brought in my dish of snow, and the boys took turns pouring the hot syrup over the snow.  The change in temperature causes the syrup to thicken.

To eat the candy, we wrapped it in circles around a spoon. You've got to work fast before it gets too hard!

The boys enjoyed it very much!!

Enjoying a snow day treat - just like Laura Ingalls!

Now, I'll admit that I did this reading related activity a little backwards.  In an ideal world, we would have been reading the whole Little House book, and I would have done this activity to reinforce what we read in the book.  But even though that's not what I did, I feel like it was worthwhile.  The boys now have an appreciation that reading such a book might be interesting even though it's about a girl, and it reinforces the idea that history and learning about the past is interesting and fun.

Have you cooked up any book related recipes recently?


If you've missed any of the other posts in our Tell Me a Story series, you'll find them here.:
Part 1 - The Jesus Storybook Bible
Part 2 - DIY storytelling discs and cubes
Part 4 - Tiger lollipops
Part 5 - A family story worth living
Part 6 - Five activities that encourage storytelling