Welcome to the Cornell Maple Program Website
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Items of Interest:
New Event! 
The Cornell Maple Program is pleased to announce a new, high-level training program for maple producers interested in developing novel maple confections and launching food manufacturing enterprises. Maple Confections Academy will take place September 9th through 11th at Cornell Agritech in Geneva, NY. This advanced training will utilize the resources of the Cornell Food Venture Center including the Food Innovation Lab and Pilot Plant to acquaint participants with large scale food manufacturing processes.
In addition, workshop sessions with Cornell experts will introduce topics in processing methodology, food safety, and shelf stability. Course participants will also have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with commercial equipment and processes. The event includes time for networking and an introduction to food enterprise startup and business support services offered by the Cornell Center of Excellence for Food and Agriculture. For more information follow the links below, or email Aaron Wightman at arw6@cornell.edu.
Farm Ops is offering a scholarship for veterans residing in New York to attend Maple Confections Academy. The scholarship will cover the $800 registration fee and overnight lodging. Learn more about the scholarship and apply.
New Edition: Confections Notebook
The 6th Edition of the Maple Confections Notebook has become available for free download. This new edition features updates to each chapter including new regulatory information, newly developed confection recipes, and improvements to document navigability and readability.
Student Research: Maple Marshmallow Spread
Working with students and researchers at Cornell University, the maple team has developed a suite of maple marshmallow products.
The Cornell Maple Program engaged a group of seniors in the Department of Food Science to research a novel product inspired by Marshmallow Fluff – a Maple Marshmallow Spread sweetened only with maple sugar. Their work resulted in a fact sheet complete with a recipe, consumer acceptability report, packaging information and more:
Check out the “New Product Development” page to keep up-to-date with the latest CMP maple product experimentation. There you can find guideline for all of the maple marshmallow products, and much more.
Maple in the Classroom – Virtual Maple Field Trip
In March 2024, New York Agriculture in the Classroom collaborated with the Cornell Maple Program to produce a Virtual Maple Field Trip where students could connect with Aaron Wightman at the Arnot Forest maple production and research facility in real time. View the recording of the event below:
When it’s that time of year that the sap starts flowing and boilers are fired up, students are eager to learn about all things maple. Cornell Maple Program has videos and activity worksheets available for free download for teachers to utilize in their maple curricula. The free resources are organized by grade level:
New Product Alert – Mappleau: A Maple Liqueur
The Cornell Maple Program has collaborated with a graduate student in the Cornell Master of Food Science program, Christian Mercado, to develop a new maple alcohol product. Mappleau (pronounced “mah-ploh“) is a liqueur inspired by Pommeau. Pommeau is fresh apple cider fortified with apple brandy and aged. Similarly, Mappleau is diluted maple syrup fortified with maple brandy. We have available a Fact Sheet that covers topics on its production, and a Recipe & Instructions document for those who want to get started making their own. An opportunity to taste the product is coming up on July 15 in Geneva, NY; take a look at the event flyer below. Visit our New Product Development page to learn more about Mappleau.
New Maple Calculators Available
Two new calculators are available on the Cornell Maple Calculators page. Both are for adjusting density. With the the Density Blending Calculator, you can get off-density syrup to correct density. It can be used for blending two syrups at around finish density, syrup and sap, or even syrup and water. The new Dilution Calculator can tell you exactly how much water you need to add to a known volume of syrup to get to your desired density. This can be used to correct over-dense syrup before canning, or even for diluting syrup for value-added products including fermentations like wine and kombucha. Both calculators are intended for calculating volumes, and units (e.g., gallons, liters, cups) are flexible to meet your project needs.
Bird-Friendly Maple
Bird-Friendly Maple is a new conservation based maple marketing initiative through the Audubon Society. “Through applied forest management, bird friendly maple producers strive to improve habitat quality in their sugarbushes to optimize breeding and foraging opportunities for forest birds in decline. The Bird-Friendly Maple project is a collaborative effort to integrate bird conservation with New York’s maple syrup industry.”
“To recognize and support participating maple producers for their good work, look for maple syrup containers with the label indicating that the syrup is Maple Managed for Birds.” The Bird-Friendly Certified Label is depicted to the left. Find out more: NY.Audubon.org.
Resource for Beginners
Cornell’s popular maple notebook series has been expanded to include a notebook for those new to the maple industry. The Maple Syrup Production Beginner’s Notebook is available for free download on the Downloadable Publications page linked in the menu bar at the top of the page. This guidebook provides information on a broad selection of topics essential for new maple producers.