A Simple Guide to Maple Syrup Grades and Flavours

How Maple Syrup Is Graded Today

If the labels on maple syrup tins leave you guessing, you are in good company. The older system, with its Grade A, Grade B and various numbers, was retired in 2015 in favour of a simpler scheme used across North America. Everything sold is now Grade A, and the useful information sits right beside it: a colour and a taste descriptor. There are four, running from light to dark.

Colour is not just cosmetic. It reflects when the sap was harvested and how far it was boiled. Early-season sap, gathered in the cold of late winter, tends to give a lighter, more delicate syrup. As the season warms, the syrup darkens and the flavour deepens. All four grades are the same product — pure maple syrup — simply boiled to different points of intensity.

What the Four Grades Taste Like

• Golden Colour and Delicate Taste. Pale, almost like light honey, with soft vanilla and floral notes. Lovely, but easily swamped by other ingredients.
• Amber Colour and Rich Taste. The classic. Buttery, rounded and clean, with a caramel finish. If you only ever buy one grade, buy this one.
• Dark Colour and Robust Taste. Noticeably deeper, with toffee, caramel and a whisper of molasses. It tastes like maple when you want maple to be heard.
• Very Dark Colour and Strong Taste. Bold and almost treacle-like, with a faintly mineral edge. Often labelled as a cooking syrup, and excellent value if that is what you plan to do.

Which Grade for Pouring, Baking and Glazing

Match the grade to the job and your cooking will improve immediately.

• For pouring, choose Golden or Amber. Drizzle over porridge, yoghurt, pancakes, waffles, ice cream or rice pudding. Golden is delightful stirred into tea or a whisky sour.
• For baking, choose Amber or Dark. Maple works beautifully in gingerbread, banana loaf, flapjacks, carrot cake and shortbread. When swapping it in for caster sugar, use roughly three-quarters of the volume in syrup and reduce another liquid in the recipe by about 15ml for every 100g of sugar replaced. Maple browns faster than sugar, so drop your oven temperature by 10°C, or cover the top with foil if it is catching.
• For glazing, choose Dark or Very Dark. A glaze needs a syrup that can stand up to mustard, vinegar, soy or spice. Brush it over roast carrots and parsnips, a Christmas ham, salmon fillets or chicken thighs.

Maple in Seasonal British Cooking

Maple syrup is often filed away with American breakfasts, but it sits very comfortably in a British kitchen.

• Autumn: roast carrots, squash or wedges of apple with a spoonful of maple and a few sprigs of thyme. Toss parsnips in maple and mustard before they go in the tin.
• Winter: a ham glaze of Dark maple, mustard and cloves; baked apples stuffed with oats and cinnamon; a splash through a crumble topping; maple butter on Christmas morning toast.
• Spring: rhubarb roasted or poached with Amber maple is a treat, and a maple-mustard vinaigrette lifts a watercress and beetroot salad.
• Any time: add a spoonful to a slow-braised pork shoulder, a chilli or a ragu for a quiet, rounded sweetness that nobody will quite identify.

Storing Maple Syrup Well

Maple syrup is a natural product with no preservatives, so it deserves a little care. Unopened, a tin or bottle keeps happily for a year or more in a cool, dark cupboard. Once opened, treat it like milk: keep it in the fridge, where it will last for many months.

Metal tins are awkward to pour from and reseal, so decant the syrup into a clean glass jar with a tight-fitting lid. If you buy in bulk, split it between smaller jars so you are not opening the same large one repeatedly.

• Mould. A fuzzy white layer on the surface means the syrup has not been kept cold enough. Discard it rather than skimming it off.
• Crystallisation. Harmless and easily fixed. Stand the sealed jar in a bowl of warm water until the crystals dissolve. Never microwave a metal tin.
• Freezing. Maple syrup freezes well, so a spare jar in the freezer is a sensible move.

Reading the Label Before You Buy

Check the ingredients list first. It should say one thing: maple syrup. Anything described as maple-flavoured syrup is usually a blend of golden syrup, glucose, caramel colour and flavouring — perfectly pleasant, but not the same ingredient, and not a reliable substitute in a bake that depends on maple's flavour.

Look for the colour descriptor on the tin, often in small print near the side or base, and consider keeping two grades in the cupboard: a lighter one for the table and a darker one for the oven. Between them, you will have the right syrup for every pancake, loaf and roasting tray that comes out of your kitchen this year.