Maple Curls

These did not make the cut into the new (1997) edition of "Joy of Cooking". They are earthy, yet ethereal, like tea fare for woodland fairies. I feel that eating crispy maple curls, filled with a cinnamon whipped cream, could possibly lift people up in some really meaningful way, but then I'm starting to realize I'm what some call a "foodie". If you're another, maybe you will agree. Either way, try the recipe!

I made these straight over the recipe from the old Joy (p. 668 in my 1964 Bobs-Merrill Plume paperback edition -- for anyone of you who prefer to simply consult your own copy).

Preheat oven to 350.

Bring to a hard boil for about 30 seconds:
1/2 cup maple syrup or maple syrup blend
1/4 cup butter

Remove from heat and add:
1/2 cup sifted flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Stir this in well. When blended, drop the dough onto a greased cookie sheet, 1 tablespoon at a time, 3 inches apart. Bake from 9 - 12 minutes or until the cookie colors to the shade of maple sugar. Remove pan from oven. When slightly cool, remove cookies with a spatula, roll as shown on page 666*, and cool on a rack.

* My note:
While the cookies are hot, quickly and carefully wrap cookies, one at a time, around the handle of a woodle spoon, to form a tube. If they cool too much, they will become too stiff to wrap. Cool tubes on a cake rack. Fortunately, because they baked with 3" of space between them on the cookie sheets (which they really do need), there are only a few at a time to deal with!
Don't burn your fingers handling the hot cookies!

The cookbook suggests filling cookie tubes with a flavored whipped cream filling, a cake filling, or a buttercream filling, and dipping the ends in chocolate "shot" or ground pistachios.