Desserts
Ode to Sugar on Snow | Maple Syrup on Snow Recipe
A fun and easy winter treat, maple syrup on snow candy requires just two ingredients — pure maple syrup and fresh, clean snow.
By Yankee Magazine|Mar 14 2022|
Coffee By Design | Portland, Maine
Photo Credit : Katherine KeenanYield:
Ingredients
Instructions
I LOVE sugar on snow. My grandparents lived on a farm in Vt., and included tapping trees and making strup. So, naturally we grew up on sugar on snow. Also, if there was any left over , we stirred it into maple ream. Now THAT was gr2eat on toast. MMMM
Exactly how I grew up. Kept snow in the freezer for my dad to boil whenever, even my kids got to enjoy the finest thing in life!
Growing up in Florida, I read about maple candy, made w snow and thought children who lived up north were so lucky. I moved to MA for college and never went back south. Still have not tried making this, but perhaps w my grands. Sounds like fun. Just like I imagined all those years ago.
Boil 1/2 cup of maple syrup ???? Better start with a quart, at a minimum unless this is sugar on snow for one small person.
Hi Steve. Well, the recipe is from 1939. Perhaps appetites were smaller back then! Feel free to use as much syrup as you want. Just make sure you have enough clean snow. Thanks!
Live in New England always loved Yankee Magazine !
One of the best childhood memories I have. Every kid should be so lucky to have had this. Especially if their grandparents made it from their own homemade syrup!!!
Growing up,I always helped my Grandfather in the sugarhouse…at the end of the season,Grandmother always treated us to sugar on snow..fond memories !!
Have you ever melted fresh “clean” snow? Even in the most rural area, it becomes water with dirt flecks in it! In this age of air pollution, snow is not ever “clean” except for maybe at the top of Mt. Everest!
the syrup will make it all good!! just stay away from the yellow snow!
Oh my goodness–the ultimate winter treat! Spring breaks spent helping to gather the sap buckets’ bounty which was hauled down to the sugar shack on a horse-drawn sled. Grandpa’s constant supervision as we helped pitch firewood to keep the boil going. The sweet steam that filled the air both inside and outdoors. In the morning, Grandma’s fluffy pancakes and later in the day, scrumptious biscuits or doughnuts covered in the heavenly syrup that their maple trees had shared with us. And, of course, the delightful sugar on snow we politely begged for at some point in the day! Ah, thanks for evoking those happy New England childhood memories!
This was an epic fail for us. Followed your instructions but the syrup just melted the snow. It wouldn’t harden. I was hoping to give my father some childhood memories, but it didn’t work.
Michelle, did you use a good Candy thermometer? Mom always said,between 228/232 degrees. Grew up in northern Vermont where our Orleans Federated Church had an anual Sugar on Snow supper. Dessert was the sugar on snow served with Mrs Fauch’s raised doughnuts and dill pickles. Also, the snow has to be a very hard pack. Usually done well before using. Going to try it here in NY tomorrow during our snow storm!
I remember having this treat as a little girl. Only had it once.
I grew up having ‘sugar on snow’ during those fun snow storms. My kids so enjoyed it too, even in West Virginia. It made them feel closer to my home growing up in Vermont.
Middle of summer treat, keep snow in the freezer
My father told me about his parents making this candy for their many children who were born in the early 1900s. Large families were poor and many worked in the textile mills of New England back then. This was often the only special treat they had.
I have often talked about having sugar on snow in our church when I was about 11 years old in Vermont. so this proves that I wasn’t lying. a lot of southern folks down here in Alabama. have never hear of it. and yes we had the donuts to go with it also.
I seem to remember an article in Yankee back in the 1960s where this was called “leather aprons”. Or do I misremember?
Growing up in NH in the 50’s & early 60’s, we also called them leather aprons. We set out a sheet pan every time it snowed.
I, too ,grew up in Vt; Windsor. We had two maple trees in the yard. Mom would boil the sap and we kids collected snow. What a treat! Six kids, no money is for treats (WW II). We didn’t worry about dirt in the snow. We are all alive and well today. I am 80 yrs. now. Too bad there are always wet blenkets in the bunch. Probably because their mothers didn’t make them sugar on snow!!
Will try this recipe come winter. Love maple. I live I Montana and thanks to eBay, and Amazon its much easier to get these days. I will have my first grandbaby in 2 months, and plan to start making this a winter tradition at grannies.
Thanks for idea/recipe
Oh my gosh ! I honestly thought we were the only family that ate this treat ! My mom boiled molasses instead ! Back then maybe there was no high fructose corn syrup,,, what an exciting time of the evening it was, to go out in our freshly fallen snowy back yard , we always had to wait until the 2nd snow fell !!! So happy to read that we were normal !!! Haha!!
My folks grew up in Vermont and their families collected Maple sap and made syrup. My dad used to make this for us at least once each winter. It connected us to our Yankee heritage!
We made “leather apron” in NH back in the 50’s. We had an unusual 6″ snpw yesterday in Sedona, AZ. What a perfect time to introduce the “grandies’ to leather apron.
Yeah, don’t eat yellow snow……it’s not lemon no matter what any one tells you.
My mom used to make this for us when we were small. She loved this treat when she was young, growing up in upstate NY. They called it “Jack Wax”…
Back in the 60’s my grandmother had 26 grandchildren and would boil a very large pan of syrup while the children went outside a collected their own bowl of clean snow. Usually had homemade donuts as well. With large families 1/2 cup per person would be more accurate, they had their own trees or a relative did.
Grew up on Massachusetts near the Vermont line. We tapped 2 Maple trees wit coffee cans., but always bought the syrup from locals. Mom would pack the snow into pie pans and drizzle the boiled syrup onto the solid pan of snow. We each got our own pan and ate the candy with a fork off the snow! So yummy!
I have tried freezing snowballs with no luck, they were hard,unsuitable for safe throwing. How did you all keep your snow proper in the freezer? Also, have frozen maple syrup, also wonderful. I did not pack the snow hard so my syrup melted in. Still wonderful, eaten with a spoon.
I pack (solidly) a rimmed jelly roll pan and keep it in the freezer. It does take up a lot of room but at least it’s shallow. Pack the snow quite firmly. I get good results this way. Good luck!
Lived in NH for 12 years. Oh! The smell when we walked outside and smelled the sugar house up the street boiling! It was hypnotic… we walked down, watched and learned how maple syrup was made, and then . . . a small, single taste size container of boiled syrup fresh from the boil, was handed over. The joy! The smell! Outside we went to find a fresh patch of snow on the ground. Poured the syrup on and snow (not all the syrup – left some to savor via licking) and marveled at Sugar on Snow. One of my favorite memories to share with our young children. Thank you to the wonderful family at Taylor Brothers Farm in Meriden, NH for the lovely spring tradition!
I cook it till hard crack stage so it doesn’t stick to teeth, soft crack stage great on vannila ice cream. We had our own sugar cabin when we lived in Quebec. Miss sugaring time.
My parents were born in Brattleboro, VT and I was born in Mass. Unfortunately my dad’s job at GE had him transferred to Indiana in ’64. My mom one winter gathered up tons of clean, newly fallen snow when I was young in Indiana and kept it in the freezer in garbage bags. Then in the summer she had people over, boiled down the maple syrup and brought out the snow! We had a sugar-on-snow party in July!
Our French-Canadian grandmother (and then our mother) always made this for us growing up in New Hampshire; what they called it sounded to us like “tsee,” but none of us ever knew the actual word or its spelling, if it had one. Does anyone know more about this? Our whole family has wondered about it for years! Thanks. It was delicious. Four generations later, our grandchildren love it too.
It’s “tire sur neige.” The specific word your grandmother would say, “tire,” means “taffy.” A direct translation is thus “taffy on snow,” which is actually more sensical than the English term “sugar on snow.”
When I was small girl growing up in small town in Southeastern Illinois, a supreme treat in my dear grandmother’s kitchen was SNOW ICE CREAM! Made with a big bowl of fresh snow, cream, vanilla syrup, and often even a maraschino cherry on top!! Eaten very quickly, but with joy and gusto! AND …with adoring looks to my dear Nana !
My grandfather tapped the maples down by the Greenwood Road in Locke Mills, Maine. He’d boil the sap down on the wood cook stove and spread the thickened syrup on a carved shelf in a snow drift by the garage. Delicious — he called them “sheepskins”.
I don’t remember maple syrup. I remember sugar vanilla and some kind of milk. I grew up in MA and my Moms friend would make it for me. Does anyone have a recipe for something like that’s?
8 oz milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
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INSTRUCTIONS
Combine milk, sugar, and vanilla extract in a glass and stir until sugar is dissolved completely
https://www.beardtasticrecipes.com/homemade-vanilla-milk/
Up until Covid the 1st Congregational Church in West Brattleboro VT had the traditional “Sugar on Snow Supper” Potato salad, Cole Slaw, Baked Beans, Deviled Eggs, sliced ham, rolls for the meal and the traditional sugar on snow for desert with donuts and pickles. It is our hope to have them again but 2022 isn’t going to be the year! The work crew at the church had as much fun making the dinner food as the people who came to enjoy it.
Growing up in the Northeast Kingdom, every winter at least once, an Awesome user Sunday afternoon. Thanks for refreshing my memory. Snowing hard in southwest Virginia…just happen to have Vernont maple syrup….I see sugar on snow, right after I make the doughnuts.????
I grew up in western Massachusetts in Holyoke on the Connecticut River. Every March during sugar season we had a dance at the Canor Club (country club) on the Connecticut River for younger teens. It was called the Sugar Eat, and was hosted by a native Vermonter friend of my father’s. We had the traditional pans of snow with strips of sugar and of course the dill pickles. There was no heat in the club house, but we all had a great time and looked forward to it every year!
Eating a dill pickle with your sugar on snow will also help to break it down from your teeth. Great if you have braces and get stuck, as a nephew of mine did one year. lol