Make Maple Syrup Taffy Outside While You Still Can

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Jan 7, 2014 3:00PM

Chuck Sudo/Chicagoist photo

While many of you spent Day one of Chiberia filming yourselves boiling water and tossing it outside in the arctic air we were struck by an old tradition we used to do when faced with these polar climes.

Take some maple syrup, warm it on the stove, then find a clean patch of snow in your backyard and drizzle the syrup atop it. The syrup quickly freezes in the snow to form a near-taffy like constitution.

You can pull it directly from the snow and eat it where you stand or you can take wooden kabob skewers and roll the syrup taffy around one end to make maple syrup taffy lollipops like this family in Ontario.

This is a great activity for folks with kids home today because schools are closed across the area. It's certainly as fun—and more productive—than watching boiling water freeze in this weather.

But get cracking: the window of opportunity to do this is quickly closing.