If you've ever wondered how to make maple butter, this post is for you. Making maple butter from pure maple syrup is fairly easy. Grab your digital thermometer and follow these steps to transform pure maple syrup into a pure maple cream spread.
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What it is
The name maple butter, also known as maple cream, is a misleading name: there's no cream or butter in pure maple butter. Maple butter is a spread made from pure maple syrup that has been boiled, cooled, and whipped so that the syrup crystallizes in just the right way to give it this spreadable smooth, creamy texture.
Maple butter is made through the controlled crystallization of sugar. So, while you are trying to prevent sugar crystallization when making caramel sauces, with maple butter, you are aiming to force the sugar to crystallize in just the right way to achieve the correct, soft, smooth, spreadable consistency. It's readily available in the New England area, as well as Quebec and Ontario, where most maple products are made. In Quebec, it may be labelled as "beurre d'érable."
Maple butter versus maple compound butter
Though some will post "easy maple butter" recipes that are made by creaming together softened butter and maple syrup, that's actually not what maple butter is at all! Don't be fooled! Real maple butter is made from pure maple syrup. It's a maple spread that is vegan and dairy free. If you want to make maple compound butter by mixing butter and maple syrup, that's another option and you can follow this honey butter recipe.
What's in it
Maple butter is made from pure maple syrup and nothing else. You may also add a tiny amount of vegetable oil (or canola oil) when you make it to prevent the maple syrup from boiling over, but there are no other ingredients in pure maple butter.
How to use it
There are so many recipes you can make with maple syrup. You can use maple syrup to sweeten an apple pie. You can use it in this maple fudge recipe or a maple syrup pie. However, maple syrup is quite fluid and "loose" so it doesn't make the best topping or filling in certain instances. This is why maple butter is more interesting in baking: it has less water!
This delicious, creamy, thick maple spread is a more practical way of baking with maple syrup without the mess of dealing with the extra water in the syrup. In instances where you want a maple-flavoured filling, maple butter is what you should use:
- sandwich it in between two cookies to make maple cream cookies where the maple butter is mixed with butter and maple sugar to make a filling for maple shortbread cookies
- spread it on toast for breakfast, like this no-knead cinnamon raisin bread or this Irish soda bread with raisins
- spread it on homemade brioche bread for the ultimate decadent breakfast!
- eat it straight with a spoon
How to make it
This maple butter recipe is the simplest of the maple syrup recipes and it's made from only 1 ingredient, as a rule: maple syrup. The science behind maple butter is relatively simple but the temperature is key to success!
- Boil maple syrup until it reaches 235°F (that's 112ºC), which is 22–24°F (12ºC) over the boiling point of water. By doing this, you are basically concentrating the sugar, making it easier to crystallize because all the tiny sugar molecules are now really close to each other in the syrup.
- Cooling the concentrated syrup in an ice bath quickly drops its temperature. This is an essential step favouring crystallization (and specifically smaller, finer crystals over bigger, chunky crystals).
- Stirring the cooled mixture for a very long time (crystallization is a process, so patience is key here): eventually, it will turn opaque/creamy-looking and become maple butter.
I encourage you to sample after cooling the syrup both before and after the long stirring process because the mouthfeel is really quite different, and that's how you know it's "done". However, avoid sampling the boiling hot syrup. It may be tempting, but it'll burn you really badly. Hungry for more recipes with maple syrup, I have a whole category of posts dedicated to baking with maple syrup to explore.
Trick to prevent sugar syrups from boiling over
Though maple butter or maple cream is made from pure maple syrup, you might have noticed that this maple butter recipe also calls for ¼ teaspoon of canola oil (you could also add a little butter, if you prefer). There's a reason for that oil. If you've ever boiled a large amount of maple syrup, you will probably have noticed that boiling maple syrup has a tendency to boil over and make a real mess of your stove if you aren't careful.
By adding a tiny amount (¼ tsp) of canola oil to the pot, the chances of maple syrup boiling over are greatly reduced because the oil helps burst the larger bubbles. This trick with oil works with boiling pasta water, though some purists will argue that the little bit of oil may interfere with the sauce sticking to the pasta. I'll leave that discussion for another time.
Top Reader Tip
A reader gave an excellent tip for this recipe that I thought I'd share:
If you have an electric hand mixer, pour the warm syrup into a large mason jar and attach only one beater to the mixer. Then mix the syrup in the jar until it becomes opaque.
Troubleshooting and FAQs
Temperature is key when making maple butter, just like when making maple fudge. Cooking the syrup enough to achieve the right sugar concentration is key, but the cooling phase is also very important. You need to cool the syrup enough that the sugar will crystallize, but if you cool it too much, it will harden into a block that is impossible to whip.
So, how do you know how much to cool the mixture? A thermometer is your best bet, but it's important to use the right thermometer for this job. Your thermometer has to be instant-read, which means your thermometer is fast to record a change in temperature. Some cheaper thermometers are not instant read. They can take several minutes to register an increase or a drop in temperature. This kind of thermometer will not work here, and you will inevitably cool the mixture too long. It will be too hard to beat.
I use a Thermoworks Thermapen, which can register temperatures and temperature changes within 3 seconds. This means you can catch the maple butter at exactly the right temperature! The Thermoworks ChefAlarm thermometer would be better suited for this recipe because it's a hands-free probe that comes with a pot clip.
If you beat your cooked/cooled maple syrup for a long time and it never forms a creamy, opaque spread, the syrup isn't concentrated enough. Your best bet is to transfer the mixture back to the pot and cook it again.
Storage and shelf life
Maple butter, also known as maple cream, is a creamy spread made from 100% pure maple syrup. This spread is dairy-free and vegan. Maple butter can be stored at room temperature in a sterilized mason jar for up to a month, but it's best to refrigerate maple butter to help improve shelf life.
The maple cream is more likely to break down and liquefy at room temperature: maple syrup may separate out. At room temperature, mold may also be an issue to watch out for. In the refrigerator, maple butter can be stored for up to 6 months. The same goes for maple syrup: store maple syrup in the fridge too to reduce mold production.
📖 Recipe
Maple Butter
Ingredients
- 500 mL pure maple syrup I used Grade A, amber syrup from Quebec
- 1.25 mL canola oil
Instructions
- Immediately, transfer the boiled syrup to your stand mixer bowl, and drop the bowl into a big ice bath to cool the syrup down to about 60°F (15–16ºC). Then let the syrup warm back up to room temperature.
- With the paddle attachment, beat the syrup on low for a very, very long time (like 30 minutes even) until it turns opaque and the color of sesame butter (the texture on your tongue when you sample it will go from syrupy at the beginning of the process to very finely powdery).
- Quickly transfer the maple butter to a large jar and store in the fridge.
- If the maple butter separates at any point, just give it a good stir before using.
Notes
Nutrition
Where to buy it (if you have zero desire to make it at home)
Maple butter spread, also called maple cream, is available where other maple products are sold, but as you can see, you can also make it at home. In Canadian grocery stores, it's either in the aisle with the maple syrup or stocked next to the breakfast spreads (jams, jellies, peanut butter, caramel spreads). In Quebec and Ontario, maple producers usually have stores where you can stock up on maple products, including maple syrup, maple butter, maple sugar, and maple flakes. Farmers' markets in Ontario, Quebec, and the New England area usually have maple stands run by local maple producers where you should be able to find maple butter.
Janet says
New Brunswick is considered the # 2 producer of maple syrup in Canada, after Quebec and # 4 in the world. Taking a drive through NB in the fall is absolutely gorgeous with all the colours of the maple trees.
Leanne P. says
Followed the instructions to a tee, only I halved the recipe. Turned out perfectly with the right consistency. I will keep this recipe and it is so easy to make at only a fraction of the actual cost to buy it. I live in Canada and maple syrup is a staple since it is so available to me but the more it is processed, the more expensive the end product. Sometimes making it yourself is the most rewarding.
Thank you for this great recipe. I think it would be helpful to people if you could put down approximate times since I think so many people rush the steps and don’t realize how long it should actually take. Just bringing it up to 235 should take close to 20 minutes. Then the ice water bath took another 15 or so and then waiting for it to come back up to room temperature is another 30 minutes. Then there is still 30 minutes of mixing. It is a slow process and you must be patient for it to turn out right. Thanks again for the great recipe.
Malinda says
Have done this twice. Followed the instructions, and everything goes as described until the very end. Instead of a spread it goes straight to chalk. I'm at a low elevation, and very low humidity. My first reaction is that I'm boiling too long, but I'm getting it up to 235 as fast as possible. And pulling it immediately. Any guesses what the fix is? I don't have a candy making background, but I'm not sure if decreasing the temp is a possibility? Or if getting it to 235 specifically is key? Halp!
Janice says
I'm so sorry the temperature of 235 F doesn't seem to be working for you. Is it possible your thermometer isn't calibrated? From your description, it sounds like you've lost too much water and so the maple syrup is crystallizing and setting "dry." I think that would mean your syrup boiled to 245–255 F, which is the temperature for making blocks of crystallized maple sugar.
If your thermometer is off by 10–20 F, then I'd try boiling to 215–225 F to see if that solves the problem. It's so tricky because sugar syrups are so sensitive to temperature that if the boiling temperature is off, the texture is completely different. I use a Thermapen which is calibrated. It's a little more pricey than candy thermometers, but more reliable. I've had mine for over 10 years!
I hope this helps and let me know how it goes if you try again!
Crystal and Virgil Lund says
A bit frustrating! I have now made this recipe two times. I used a candy thermometer and let the maple syrup reach (exactly) 235º when boiling, and then down to (exactly) 60º in the ice bath, and then back to room temperature before using my kitchen aid on low to mix it. Both times the maple syrup went opaque within a couple minutes but became a VERY sticky / caramel-like texture that would be impossible to spread. The second time I kept mixing to see if the consistency would change and it became very powdery and clay-like.
Janice says
Hi! That is very frustrating and I'm sorry this isn't working for you! If the mixture becomes dry and sandy, it sounds like it's boiled too long. Is it possible your thermometer might be off? I've had this problem in the past with fudge, where the fudge ends up too dry because I apparently overcooked the mixture even though my thermometer indicated I was at the right temp.
You could check by boiling a pot of water and measuring the temperature with your thermometer to see if it's registering the correct temp: 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) and then if it's off, you will have to adjust the cooking temperature accordingly. I hope that helps!
Also you should be able to salvage it. The dry maple sugar can be ground up and used to make maple cookies, for example.
Karen says
I thought I was ordering pure maple spread and go organic pure maple sugar. Can I open these jars and melt the sugar to become maple syrup and go from there??
Janice says
Hi Karen, the trouble with the maple sugar is that it has no water, so when you melt it, it's going to want to solidify/crystallize back to the solid form and you may have a difficult time getting it to melt evenly. On the other hand, maple syrup does contain water (I gather it could be around 30-33 % water). I think this has an impact on how the syrup behaves when you boil and cool it. If you want to make maple butter from it, you may have to mix in some water (use the percentage above as your guide to how much. I have no idea if this will work. I've never tried it. But if you really want to try to make maple butter from the sugar, I guess it's worth trying to see what happens!
Let me know how it goes if you do try...
Angie says
Hello, I am making maple butter. boiled syrup to 240 degrees, cooled and put into the butter machine. churned it and it will not thicken. Need help. Thank you.
Janice says
Hi Angie, I'm sorry your maple butter isn't setting. Are you sure it's cooled enough? If it truly has cooled enough and it's still not thickening, then you will have to put the syrup back in a saucepan on the stove and heat it up again. Is it possible your thermometer isn't registering temperatures properly? It seems like the syrup didn't heat to high enough temperature and that's why it's not crystallizing.
Also, I'm not familiar with a butter machine, but I'm guessing it just whips the liquid you put in it?