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Do you use REAL Maple Syrup or do you use the kind with high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors and preservatives? You may not have realized that typical grocery store syrup is full of all that junk. However, real maple syrup is a natural sweetener that actually still has some nutrients in it. As is the case with any sweetener, you shouldn’t overdo it, but if you’re going to have something sweet, using maple syrup is a great natural choice.
photo by jsorbieus
Where to buy it?
We get ours through our farmer, but you can ask at your local health food store to find out where to buy it locally. I usually pay between $32 & $36/gallon.
Different grades of maple syrup?
As far as I know, there are two grades of maple syrup: grade A & grade B. Grade B is much stronger (and usually a bit more expensive), and personally, I prefer it to grade A. However, grade A is good to start with if your kids aren’t used to maple syrup, because it’s very mild and closer in taste to the icky store-bought versions.
By the way, I had to play games when switching our syrup over to healthier versions, the same way I did with peanut butter: keep your store-bought container and put your syrup in that for a few months…this technique works very well!
All Maple Syrup keeps the best in the refrigerator.
How to use it?
Here are a few of my favorite ways to use Maple Syrup, besides the obvious, which reminds me, here’s my recipe for healthy waffles/pancakes. I use Maple Syrup in certain recipes to replace the sugar:
- It’s great in the bottom of a pan with butter and cinnamon when making cinnamon rolls.
- I love it in the fall stirred in with butternut squash along with lots of butter, sea salt & pepper.
- It’s divine in the homemade applesauce recipe in the Nourishing Traditions cookbook! (Tastes like the best apple pie you’ve ever had! I feel so rich when we still have some jars of this in the freezer.)
- I’ve also put it on top of yogurt or oatmeal.
- Oooh, when looking for a picture to use on this post, I saw a picture of “maple banana bread” – doesn’t that sound yummy?! It would be easy to just replace the sugar in a banana bread recipe with Maple Syrup!
- UPDATE: here’s one more – it’s a great sweetener for homemade ice cream!
What are your favorite ways to use Maple Syrup instead of sugar in recipes? Comment below and share it with us!
More details here on Maple Syrup. And one more info page from Wikipedia.
- Need some healthy breakfast ideas? (Also in this post is a link to info on whether or not we should be eating boxed breakfast cereals.)
- Wonder about Agave Nectar and other sweeteners? The comments at this post are still goin’…
- More Rookie Tips
- Thanks to Laura for the idea for another post!
(Many more topics along the right in the sidebar!)
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Holly 07.21.08 at 4:25 am
Sometimes as a treat I pour a little over some cooked carrots just to sweeten them up a little. I must admit, I usually do this when I am not all that thrilled with how the rest of my dinner is turning out.
If carrots are going to be the highlight of your meal you gotta do something to them!
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Kelly the Kitchen Kop 07.21.08 at 4:55 am
Mmmm, I’ll bet the cooked carrots go over a little better with the kids that way, too.
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Jody 07.21.08 at 5:41 am
We’ve used maple syrup in everything for a long time! To sweeten French Toast, in pumpkin muffins, chocolate pudding, homemade chocolate syrup, in oatmeal, and yogurt.
I had not thought of using them with cinnamon rolls–YUM!
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Michigan Mom2three 07.22.08 at 4:29 am
I’ve made “maple butter”, which is just whipping softened butter with maple syrup together. Use a mixer with nice quality wire whips. Maple butter is WONDERFUL on homeade cornbread or homeade biscuits along with a pot of homeade soup in the winter. You can also just spread it on your morning toast!
Shauna
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Kelly the Kitchen Kop 07.22.08 at 6:39 am
Great ideas, everyone! Keep ‘em coming!
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Katrina again 11.20.08 at 7:50 am
I don’t think we can get it locally around here. Anyone know where a girl can get some decent grade B for a good price?
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Kelly the Kitchen Kop 11.20.08 at 9:45 am
Hi Katrina,
Recently I needed to find a new source, so I called around to local apple orchards and found it there. Bummer is, it’s only grade A. Grade B is not easy to come by (in my experience anyway), and when you do, it’s expensive, but worth it!
Kelly
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Donielle @ Naturally Knocked Up 12.30.08 at 3:30 pm
I use our maple syrup 1:1 with melted butter and brush over roasted sweet potato chunks about 10 minutes before they’re done. Our favorite way to eat sweet potatoes!!
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Kelly 12.30.08 at 10:09 pm
Oh myyyyyy that sounds yummy!
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Margie/Midwife/Mom of 7 01.24.09 at 5:18 pm
Ok, Hopefaully someone can help me out here. I live in Az (backside of the desert, as the saying goes here) and I need to find the best deal on 1 gallon or 5 gallon containers of maple syrup. I’ve done a little bit of web searching and am finding them for about 60 dollars for a gallon. Ouch!! So if anyone has a better source I need to find one!
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Margie/Midwife/Mom of 7 01.24.09 at 5:20 pm
Here’s a followup on the syrup source post , I forgot to check the e-mail box so I’m re-posting here.
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Kelly 01.25.09 at 12:13 am
Margie, it’s late, so maybe I’m just getting fuzzy, but what were you following up WITH in the 2nd comment?
My advice is to check with your local Weston A. Price chapter and ask them where to buy syrup: http://www.westonaprice.org/localchapters/index.html
$60 seems like a lot, I’ve gotten mine for $32, but not recently. The other day a place (Robinettes for the local readers) was selling them for $75! I got some a couple months ago for $44.
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