Mad for Maple

It’s my 45th birthday today (how did that happen?!) and I’m trying to decide what dessert I want to have. Everything I keep coming up with seems to have maple syrup involved, I fear. I realized that instead of chocolate, I really want to use some of our own maple syrup.

Maple custard is good! It’s so easy to make, and I think it’d be firm enough to hold up a candle. When I use raw milk from grass-fed cows, eggs from my own really really really free-range happy chickens, and maple syrup that I made myself, it’s practically healthy! Oh how I miss Elly’s milk or my sheep’s milk. I can’t wait for Zippy to freshen and for next spring’s lambing season.

Maple ice cream has become one of my favorite ice creams. If I add strawberry or blueberries to it, it’s even better. I have all the ingredients on hand to make it, but although the weather is as gorgeous as possible for a November day, it’s only going to hit 50°F and that’s not really ice cream weather. I’m really glad I managed to freeze both blueberries and strawberries this year. We need to grow more fruit.

One year, I got my chocolate and maple fix in the same dessert, using left-over chocolate pancakes. It was really good and so dramatic, but so very sweet that it took us nearly two weeks to eat it. We just don’t have the sweet teeth that we used to have. I only made chocolate pancakes once after the kids moved out. I think it may be time to do it again. You only turn 45 once! I want something simple this year, though. I really want to take as much of a day off as I can. It’s been a while.

I wonder if we can find any of these little maple cakes that I made in the freezer? I remember freezing some and we have tons of similar looking things in the chest freezer. I need to get better at labeling. It keeps disappearing when I just use a Sharpie, so we’ve taken to writing something on paper and putting it inside the bag as well. There’s nothing better than maple buttercream icing. I love to decorate cakes. Before I met Frank, I used to bake for a significant part of my income. I miss that! Last year I baked for several CSAs, but we had to conclude that it was not really profitable. It took me too much time for how much I could make, sadly.

Pots de creme. Oh, the hardship of having too many eggs! When I make that with duck eggs, it’s absolutely amazing, and I have duck eggs right now. I like to make a sort of creme brulee by torching some maple sugar on top, and the yumminess just goes through the roof. I’ve been talking with two of the restaurants in Keene about supplying them with duck eggs and maple syrup so they can put a “locally sourced from happy, free-range ducks” item on their menu. How cool would that be? Maybe I should make some of these and take it by for them to taste? That might seal the deal.

I need to get their laying habits a bit better. Right now, it’s an Easter Egg hunt every day to find the pile. I hadn’t been expecting them to be laying this much in the fall and this young. Frank found a duck egg yesterday without a shell. We’ve heard about that but had never actually seen one before.