And for the lovely delicious maple creams.

Mmmmm... maple creams.

This is a very basic recipe, you can alter it to suit any flavor you like. If you love the cherry flavored ones, replace the maple syrup with maraschino cherry juice. If you're a mint fan, try some creme de menthe. Any flavor you like, make a simple syrup and use it in place of the maple syrup. Just typing this, I'm excited to make a star anise simple syrup and have some licorice creams.



Maple Creams
1 cup maple syrup
1 cup cream
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
(optional nuts, up to 1 cup)

Put the flavor syrup, cream, and sugar into a heavy bottomed pan over medium heat. Bring it past a boil, to 236F. Keep stirring the whole while, or your pan will try to boil over.




If you're working without a candy thermometer, take this to the "Soft Ball" stage (drop a bit of the boiling sugar mix into a cup of hot water occasionally, and see how far the molecules have changed by observing its reaction. Our ancestors developed a pretty nifty chart, but the one I dragged along from my childhood is printed on paper and copyrighted, so check the one on About.com. Most cookbooks probably have a copy as well.

Once your maple creams make it to the soft ball stage (aka 236F), pour it into a cool bowl and add the vanilla. Bring the candy thermometer along, and sit with your lover while it cools to 110 F.



This will take a good long while. Once it's cooled to 110F, stir it just a bit until it begins to lose its gloss. You're mixing in a bit of air now so the creams will be light and creamy, but don't mix too much or they will be grainy. So do just a bit of hand mixing, then pour it into a buttered 9x9 pan (or anything with sides, that you've buttered in advance). Let it continue to cool. Once it's cool, you can cut it into rectangles.




I was bad at this---straight lines are not my forte. On the bright side, I got to eat the scraps





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Per square (inch? cm?) of root area?

Hm.

I neglected to write down a source for that, so let's strike it from the record.

I usually think of water in terms of acre-feet (Vaccinium macrocaropon, for example, need an inch per week as a rule of thumb)... hrmmmm...

I stand called out. less

Nah, I'm just too literal and too critical. The International Cocoa Organization says 2000mm of rainfall(link), which works out to 200mL per square centimeter, I think. So I was being pedantic instead of just thinking about it a bit. less