maple candy

Ingredients: maple syrup, butter (haven't tried it with butter, but I'd try 1T butter-1pt syrup)

1. Put a metal pan (cake pan, baking pan) in the freezer. I wouldn't try pyrex in case the temperature changes are too much.
2. In a saucepan, heat the syrup and butter to 235F over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally, and make sure it doesn't boil over (shouldn't happen with butter added).
3. Remove from heat, cool to 175F. Grease the freezer pan.
4. Stir very rapidly until it looks creamy and changes color (could be a few minutes!)
5. Pour into the cold pan. Let it cool slightly and then cut into squares. Remove from pan when squares are hard.
6. Cleanup is ridiculously easy: all the leftover sugar will dissolve in an hour if soaked in room-temperature water.

This made incredibly rich, sweet, delicious maple candy. We did it with pure syrup and just a few drops of oil, added when the syrup almost boiled over. It was a little crumbly for my taste, so I think the deliberate addition of butter will help with that. All my roommates find it too sweet to have more than a small bite at a time...just a heads-up it might be an acquired taste.