How to make maple candy

This was my first foray into the magical world of maple sugar, otherwise known as maple syrup, maple candy, and maple sap. I have been wanting to try this for a number of years, but the opportunity never arrived. I was forced to live vicariously through my brother who managed to boil down about 2.5 pints of syrup last year. I have to admit that this was supposed to be a recipe for maple syrup, but. . . Anyways, the recipe follows.

Ingredients:
5 gallons of pure maple sap

Directions:
Convince one of your neighbors that tapping their maple tree will be in their best interest and that it actually will not hurt the tree. Start by checking the tree, drill holes, hammer in taps, tubing, buckets, calm the neighbor, yada yada, etc. Place the tree sap into a large pot or two. Boil the sap for about 8 hours, or until the sap is decreased 40:1 (yes that is right, 8 hours or 40:1). After the 8 hours, you will have about 1.5 pints of "almost syrup." At this point you can put all of the liquid into a smaller pot in order to accurately measure the temperature of the liquid. For syrup, you need the temp to be approximately 220F. For candy. . . well, I'll explain later in the recipe.

Now is the important part. Place the smaller vessle on the stove on HIGH. Then go upstairs to kiss your babies, read them a story, and tuck them into bed. Afterall, it has taken 8 hours to get to this point - what could possible go wrong in ten ^&*$@!* minutes?

When the fire alarm goes off and the digital voice starts saying "FIRE, FIRE, FIRE", run downstairs and put the fire out. Don't relax yet, your work is not done. Place the burning pot on the counter and turn the gas stove off (otherwise the flames do not go away).

Warning: this is not a good time to taste or touch the product. It will be incredibly hot!!!

Now, clean the hell out of your stove and all other affected appliances. After you are finished, you can take stock of the product you have produced. It should be approximately 0.25 pints of useless, gummy, sticky, chewy, candy with the faint taste of burnt tree bark.

Enjoy. You earned it. And remember, never take your eyes off of the pot.