Wisconsin Maple Pudding
Ingredients:
- 2 cups milk
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup pure maple syrup
- pinch of salt
- 1⁄4 cup cornstarch
- 2 egg yolks
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Put one cup of the milk, the cream, maple syrup and salt in a medium-sized pot and heat until simmered.
In a separate bowl, mix the cornstarch, remaining cup of milk and egg yolks. Whisk until blended.
Take about a cup of the heated milk and slowly pour it into the egg mixture, whisking the whole time. Return the egg mixture to the pot and slowly bring it up to a quiet simmer, with continued whisking.
When the mixture thickens, remove if from the heat immediately. Mix in the butter and vanilla, stirring constantly until the butter has disappeared.
Cover with plastic wrap directly on top of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming.
Serve the pudding in a chocolate cup with caramel drizzle and fresh berries or toasted nuts.
- Recipe by Ryan Boughton
The recent spell of balmy days and below-freezing nights has been exactly what maple trees need to get the sap flowing on his land off Wisconsin 59 in Sylvester Township.
"Looks like we're on track for about 600 gallons this year," he said.
Six-hundred gallons of sap, that is. Forty gallons of sap boils down to about one gallon of syrup, so his yield this year will be about 15 gallons.
Tappers learn to go with the flow. As it is with many things, Mother Nature determines how long the season is, Barrett says. Some years, like in 2012, a spell of unseasonably warm weather can dry up production.
Even when the weather cooperates, there's a short window of opportunity for tapping - about two weeks this year for Barrett. He finished putting taps in his trees March 24 and collected 60 gallons the next day. This weekend, he'll be wrapping up collection.
Barrett taps about 90 to 100 trees on 20 acres. It's a group effort. Thursday afternoon he invited some buddies over to help him collect sap and boil it down, plying them with beer and cheese for their services.
"I got drafted, especially this year because I'm retired," said Bob King, Monroe. He and a couple other guys hung around a wood-burning oven in Barrett's sugar shack and kept watch over the sap boiling in a metal trough. The steamy air was sweet with the emerging smell of syrup and the smoke of burning basswood, red oak, white oak and walnut.
Sap straight off the tree smells and looks like water. Only after three rounds of boiling, first in the sugar shack and then in Barrett's garage and kitchen, does it take on a golden hue and give off the rich smell of maple.
Barrett isn't the first to make maple syrup from this forest. He grew up down the road and played among the trees as a kid. Back then, the land belonged to Harry Grinnell, a longtime rural mail carrier. Barrett bought it from Grinnell's daughter in the 1990s and started his maple syrup operation in 2006 using the existing sugar shack, which he estimates dates back to about 1960.
Barrett is a hobby producer and his syrup, "Barrett's Brew," is just for home use and gifts. But this year, it will also be used in a recipe created by chef Ryan Boughton for the Monroe Arts Center's "Flavors of the Heartland" dinner on Monday, May 6, at Ludlow Mansion. For more information and reservations, go to monroeartscenter.com or call 608-325-5700.
Boughton, executive chef at One Eleven Main in Galena, is using the syrup in a maple pudding that will be served in chocolate cups from Chocolate Temptation and drizzled with rosemary caramel and a reduction of New Glarus Brewing's Raspberry Tart. The dessert will be served with an edible spoon made of shortbread. (See sidebar for pudding recipe.)
For a less refined option, Barrett recommends simply pouring maple syrup over ice cream.
"You know what's really naughty? You get butter pecan ice cream and pour it on there," he said.