Maple Sugar Iced Tea

It's still early spring but we are having a summer-like weather. Today the temperature will go as high as 80 degrees. I'm just starting my vegetable garden and staying outside clearing the yard of winter debris in this hot weather makes me exhausted and I get dehydrated quickly. But it's the perfect time to make gallons of sweet iced tea. Not just any iced tea but similar to the one served in restaurants in the Philippines, I think in the late 70s or maybe early 80s, called Butterfly iced tea. The iced tea was so popular the people who owned the restaurant and the drink started selling concentrate in gallon jugs at the supermarkets. But the drink disappeared just like that, never to be heard of again, it's a mystery. I read that somebody interviewed the owners who for some reason would not even talk about the ice tea and its demise. Odd.

Anyway, I have been making an iced tea drink that tastes similar to the Butterfly iced tea. The not-so-secret ingredient is maple extract. The flavor becomes unique when combined with the juice of the Philippine lime, calamansi, although lemon juice is equally wonderful with the maple flavor. Maple sugar is sold at most grocery stores but it is super expensive and maple flavoring is available at King Arthur Flour online and catalog.

A year ago I discovered an unopened jar of maple syrup that has expired. I don't really understand why it has an expiration date, it's sugar syrup, why should it go bad. Instead of throwing it away I boiled the syrup down, dried the crystals, broke them into large chunks, and that's what I use together with raw sugar to sweeten the iced tea. Yum. I could finish a gallon of this stuff in a day.:-)

Maple Sugar Iced Tea
makes approximately 4 cups
3 English breakfast tea bags
2 cups boiling water
maple sugar or syrup, to taste
raw sugar (demerara), to taste
juice of 1 lemon, strained
1 cup ice cold water
1½ cups ice

• Brew tea in boiling water. Discard bags. Add maple syrup or sugar and raw sugar until dissolved. Add the juice, water, and ice. Enjoy.

MellowBakers Bagels

Although I love homemade bagels I was a bit reluctant to bake them for the MellowBakers. I have the option to skip it but after reading Paul's post I changed my mind; his bagels are very pretty and nicely golden brown [my bagels always come out anemic]. And I'm glad I did because I love the flavor and chew of Hamelman's bagels. They are as good as BBA's but the procedure has an added step of leaving the boiled doughs in ice water before baking. I'll be honest, I omitted this step because I find the 3-minute ice bath too long and what's the reason for it when the bagels are going immediately into the oven anyway.

Aside from looking like vampire bagels, they are thinner and have larger holes than what you normally buy from the stores and I found out from Paul that this is Montreal style and the fat ones with almost no holes are New York style. I never knew that. Thanks Paul. I don't have any preference as long as the bagel is yummy and chewy....and these are yummy and chewy....and really nice with grated young Gouda cheese mixed with chopped roasted sweet yellow or red bell pepper (pimiento) and a tablespoon of mayonnaise.

If anybody wants to try making these bagels here is the recipe.