Maple sugar? made by accident

[danfredw]

Boiled today and made around 1 gallon. Since I'm small scale in hotel pans, I was trying to get it out into a pot to bring inside. Turns out I needed 2 of them so I set one down, a Dutch oven, in the snow. I thickened hard on the sides before I noticed. I had thought to just scoop out the good and see what I could do with the bad, but my wife decided to heat it over low heat to soften it. Then it became a sugar like substance which I had to chisel out.

I looked up a recipe for Maple sugar, but I believe the difference was that I needed to heat it up much hotter and then do a lot of stirring. I did none of that, but I did cool it, which reminded me of making Maple cream.

Did I still make Maple sugar? Was there another way to "fix" it or was it toast by just cooling it down? I am happy I still have 2 quarts, but had hoped for my whole gallon.

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[Father & Son]

If you have any sap that is close to syrup, mix it with your boo boo, reheat and you should be real close to syrup. The sap that isn’t syrup will melt it back down to a liquid.

[danfredw]

Ok so you don't think anything structurally changed in the result similar to how cooling Maple cream and stirring it does?

I'll give it a go if you think so. That's what I had been thinking initially, but then it really changed drastically.

[DrTimPerkins]

Either way, whether you made cream, sugar, or something in between, as long as you didn't burn it you can always mix water or sap into it, heat and stir and it'll come back to a liquid.

[danfredw]

Thanks. My wife will be happy to hear that she didn't accidentally lose 50% of my work. It still tastes great in this form anyways.