Maple Syrup and Birthday Cupcakes
This past weekend a good friend from high school was visiting Boston. K had a conference here last week and stayed to hang out this weekend. On top of hanging out with friends, Butler made it to the Final Four! K went to Butler and is the president of his local alumni club!
On Saturday we decided to partake in some local fun by heading up to New Hampshire to go to a maple house where they boil maple syrup. We had beautiful weather on Saturday. It was a bit chilly but sunny and not a cloud in the sky. After arriving at the Grant Family Maple House, we had some food and got in line to learn all about how maple syrup is made.
What we learned is that the sap from the trees has about 2-3% sugar in it straight from the tree. At that percentage, it would take 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup!! So they first condense the sap until it reaches about 8% sugar. The sap is then boiled to evaporate off the water.
Once the temperature reads 7 degrees above the boiling point of water, you have syrup! The guy in the maple house even explained how they use a baraometer on the wall to get the barometric pressure so they know the exact boiling temperature of water for that given day. It was all very scientific and extremely interesting.
The small bottles of maple syrup were a sample from each batch they had made at the maple house this season. The guy explained that as the season goes on, the syrup tends to get darker due to the change in the amount of sugar in the sap.
Of course, we had to get some maple products while we were there. Obviously, maple syrup. We also got some maple candies, some maple sugar, and some maple pepper. Can’t wait to find creative ways to use the sugar and pepper. If anyone has suggestions, please let me know!
Also, since K’s birthday was last week, I made him some cupcakes to celebrate. I went with my go-to chocolate cupcake recipe. I love that you can whip these up by dirtying only one bowl and using a whisk! I dipped them in some ganache and topped with festive sprinkles. Aren’t they pretty?
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
this cake screams a lot of things!
eat me comes to my mind!
lol
beantownbaker — February 8th, 2014 @ 11:57 am
It does definitely scream that 🙂
Gorgeous Bundt, Jen! It looks amazing. Love the butter and cocoa tip and the raspberries!
beantownbaker — February 9th, 2014 @ 8:58 pm
Thanks 🙂
Who needs a tunnel of love when you have a tunnel of fudge! This looks fantastic!!
beantownbaker — February 11th, 2014 @ 12:14 pm
So true!
This cake looks glorious 🙂 I am dying to get a slice, maybe two 😉
The original recipe called for a box of Pillsbury’s frosting mix and was much, much better than the current recipes. There was a tunnel of gooey soft fudge in the middle that you just can’t get with today’s recipes for this cake. But it’s still a great cake!
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One of my favorites! Thanks for the reminder..I need to make this – soon!
I just tried this yummy recipe from your blog and it has come out really yummy!! 🙂
This is my first tunnel of fudge cake and I am quite happy with the outcome…
Thanks for sharing this easy recipe 🙂
Gorgeous!!! I’d love to try to make it for my family soon. Your recipe is so detailed, but to a clumsy person like me, Hopefully I won’t mess everything up haha.
Looking at the picture of your cake I just wanna try it immediately. It looks really good. It is good to make it at home and serve on some special occasions like birthday parties or a party with friends on weekends. Thanks Jen for sharing this recipe with us!
Nice recipe Jen! Hope that I can do it the way you make your cake. Always love chocolate. Thank you for sharing it!
oh my god, I fell in love with it at the first sight. So yummy and nice at the look. Thanks Jen for sharing wonderful recipe!
Awesome, you make it like an artist. It looks so delicious, I will try your recipe to make it for my kids. Thank you so much for sharing this!
This cake recipe looks very sweet and delicous. I will try it soon. Thank for share this great post.
This looks amazing, I will try this out tomorrow, thank you for sharing!