Candy, Creativity and Perseverance

Maggie has been exercising her creativity and love for experimentation. Yesterday she attempted candy making, trying to produce maple sugar candy like she had read about in a Laura Ingalls Wilder book. Having no real maple syrup, she substituted pancake syrup. She also decided to add a little flavor by sprinkling in some cinnamon sugar, cocoa, and vanilla extract. She heated it briefly on the stove and then set it aside to cool with straws inserted in the pot of brown liquid with the hopes that lollipops might form. When the syrup didn't harden Maggie moved it to the fridge thinking that chilling might help it harden. In the afternoon she boiled it a little while longer. The liquid thickened but remained a liquid. Today she put it in the freezer for a while. The pot frosted over, but the syrup did not solidify. We enjoyed the confection by dipping pretzels in it and Maggie had it over ice cream. Maggie now thinks that maybe she should take a look at candy recipes.



Candy making hasn't been her only creative outlet. A friend of our gave us a box full of fabric scraps that Maggie pounced on with delight. She immediately busied herself with dividing up the contents for different projects and people. Today she began to cut the fabrc into squares to make a travelling quilt for her baby doll. She says that she wants to hand sew the whole thing. That's just as well since my sewing machine keeps breaking my thread.