Maple Fudge Cake

• servings: 16

Ingredients

Cake:

1 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cup maple sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 tablespoon maple extract

5 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 cup maple syrup

Icing:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup maple sugar

2/3 cups maple syrup

2 teaspoons maple extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 cups icing sugar, sifted

Directions

Cake: Grease three 8-inch (1.2 L) round cake pans; line bottoms with parchment paper. Set aside.

In large bowl, beat butter with sugar until light, about 5 minutes; beat in eggs, 1 at a time, scraping bowl between each addition. Beat in maple extract. In separate bowl, whisk together flour, ginger, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, whisk together buttermilk and maple syrup. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture alternately with buttermilk mixture, making 3 additions of flour mixture and 2 of buttermilk mixture until smooth. Divide batter among prepared pans; smooth tops.

Bake in centre of 350°F oven until cake tester inserted in centres comes out clean, 28 to 30 minutes. Let cool in pans on rack for 10 minutes. Invert onto racks; peel off parchment paper. Let cool completely. (Make-ahead: Wrap layers separately in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 1 day or overwrap with heavy-duty foil and freeze for up to 2 weeks.)

Icing: In large bowl, beat butter until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in sugar, maple syrup, maple extract and salt. Slowly beat in icing sugar. Beat until pale and fluffy, 5 to 6 minutes.

Using serrated knife, trim tops of cakes to make level. Reserve cake trimmings for cake pops (see tip, below). Brush maple syrup over cut side of each cake. Assemble and frost cake.

Notes

Maple Sugar:

Ingredients

-1 quart maple syrup

Instructions

Pour syrup into a large pot with high sides. It will be boiled vigorously so make sure you have a large enough pot.

Boil over medium-high heat on your stove. Do not stir the syrup at this point. You can add a bit of butter to reduce the foam, but just make sure you use a deep pot.

Use a candy thermometer to check the temperature. Remember, it needs to be 45-50° F above the boiling point of water at your elevation. It should take less than 15 minutes for the hot syrup to come to temp. We are less than 1000 feet, so we take ours to about 260°F

Once you have reached that temp, turn off the heat or remove it from an electric burner. You can either start to stir at this point or allow it to cool to about 200°F, according to the above referenced bulletin from Cornell.

We wait for it to cool a bit but at this stage the liquid is till very hot so wear an apron and heat resistant gloves to avoid burns. Also, work carefully to avoid splatters to your face.

Once it cools a bit, start stirring the syrup. If you stir by hand, it will take 15-20 minutes to granulate. As the syrup hardens it will become increasingly difficult to stir. We prefer pouring the liquid into the Kitchenaid mixer bowl, with the paddle attachment and letting the tool do all of the hard work. Use a low speed.

Now there will be some chunks so you want to strain it trough a fine mesh sieve to remove some of them. Stainless steel will be the best to use. If you let the sugar air dry, you can sift once more to minimize clumping, in a low humidity environment.

If chunks still remain, once the sugar has dried a bit, run some of the larger chunks through your food processor to break them up.

One quart of syrup yields about 1 quart of maple sugar.

Store the sugar into an airtight container.