I made my first batch of maple cream last night. I followed the directions on the "Making Maple Cream" paper from Cornell. I boiled up to 23deg F above boiler (212F yesterday), removed from the heat and gently placed it in a huge cast iron skilled, then packed ice around the pan. I was able to force cool it down to 59F (on the digital thermometer) within a fairly short time. I did not disturb the liquid at all (didn't even let my kids look at it...LOL) Anyway, when I went to remove the thermometer probe I noticed I now had maple taffy. Extremely thick! (still 59F). I never saw any crystallization start, but it seemed to have a fine layer of crystals ac ross the top where the bubble did not fully reconstitute back in to the cooked syrup.

Next step was to get the "taffy" out of the pan and in to my mixing bowl. Below the initial crust layer it was still very clear, but just as thick. I used our Kitchen Aide mixer on "stir" with the wiper paddle to mix the cream. It took about 10 minutes or less to become opaque, so I stopped the process. Putting the cream in to jars was another challenge as it was still extremely thick. At that time the cream had a little grainy texture, but didn't seem too bad to me (for the 1st try anyway). The cream was placed in the fridge for storage and I cam straight to mapletrader.com to see what I did wrong.

After quite a bit of reading I learned how to make many new products similar to maple cream, but I didn't really find an answer to what I may have done wrong. After an hour or so I found a post that said the cream should be able to spread on fresh bread without ripping. So, back to the fridge I went and to my surprise the maple cream was solid. A couple seconds in the microwave made it spreadable, but it left me with even more questions.

So, after that long explanation here is what I'm wondering:

1) Is it typical for the bubbles not to totally reconstitute and start forming crystals?
2) Did I maybe force cool it too fast?
3) Was using the Kitchen Aid mixer on "stir" still too fast of a mixing process? Could that have lead to larger crystals forming?
4) Is it typical for maple cream to get very stiff in the fridge? Should the product I am using (eating) be kept out of the fridge and in the cupboard?


As a final side note: This morning I mixed some of the maple cream with butter and spread it on my English muffin....WOW!!!!! Maple butter is awesome!!!!!!!

Thanks in advance for your help and input.