We've all had those moments when everything clicks perfectly into place and your mind becomes clear: put the bacon in the pancakes. And adding the maple syrup to the batter is the logical next step. All you need is a big pot of coffee—and even more bacon and maple syrup—and brunch is on the table in less than half an hour. More

Easter brunch is always a big deal. Whether it's lots of family, or a few friends hunting for eggs there is always a lot of last minute rushing around. It's times like this when I think to myself: there has to be a better way to make breakfast for eight than cooking 8 batches of French toast one at a time. Enter French Toast Casserole. This simple baked French toast is perfect for an occasion where putting something into the oven is about all you have time for. You construct the whole thing the night before, then all you've got to do in the morning is preheat the oven, and you're good to go. More

Yes, bacon. The universal cheater food that makes any dish an instant hit. But it's not like I'm throwing bacon around willy-nilly. This is bacon bread. Or, more appropriately, Bacon!!! Bread. Bacon wasn't enough, though. I wanted just a little more. Enter maple. More

Having grown up in a cold, maple-filled part of the world, my love of baked beans runs hard and deep. There is nothing like getting back from snowshoeing to the beer store to a house that is filled with the aroma of sweet, salty, fatty baked beans. As with many recipes, the secret ingredient to world changing baked beans is pork. More

This marks the third (and final, phew) piece in our instant oatmeal tasting series. This is probably when many of you stop being jealous of our taste tests. Maple Brown Sugar, let's just call it MBS, is typically the first to go in the instant oatmeal variety pack. Can it ever taste like the good stuff from sap-flowing trees? The market has expanded beyond our childhood pal Quaker, but are any of the newcomers an improvement? The SE quest to see if decent instant oatmeal exists continues. More

Early March marks the beginning of sap season, and once the fields of maple trees are tapped, the province celebrates by opening the doors of the numerous family-owned cabanes à sucre, or sugar shacks. In 2009, chef Martin Picard—the owner of Montreal restaurant Au Pied de Cochon —retreated from the frenzied pace of his city restaurant and built a cabane à sucre in the Mirabel countryside, nearly an hour's drive outside Montreal. Take a look at the maple-centric menu: from New Brunswick oysters to the tourtière meat pie, everything involves maple syrup. More

McDonald's recently launched a new breakfast item: Maple and Fruit Oatmeal. We thought it was too sweet, and not in a maple-y way. In a whoa, hold back on the sugar way. Not a huge surprise here but the oatmeal doesn't contain actual maple syrup, just "natural maple flavoring." The Vermont Agency of Agriculture calls this a violation of the state's strict maple law. More

March means sugaring season in Vermont. After a series of warm days and freezing nights, it's time to tap those trees and begin the maple syrup-making process. Cook's Illustrated editor Christopher Kimball hopped on his four-wheeler through his farm, Two Pigs Farm, to retrieve sap from his maple trees and "sugar," or boil down the liquid. This video is not only informative but set to his bluegrass band's cover of the Grateful Dead hit Eyes of The World. More

"On average we need around 57 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup." [Photographs: Welch's Syrup] *Schoolyard Sugarbush wasn't able to send us syrup photos. Ah, late winter. A time when intrepid local eaters are sick of leftover beets and kale from the farmers' markets. But do not despair, things are starting to turn around! One of the most important and delicious signs that spring is upon us? Maple syrup season. All over the Northeast and Canada, sap is starting to flow, and thankfully people like Don Weed of Schoolyard Sugarbush in New Hope, New York, are there to harvest it and boil it down to pure, delicious, maple syrup. Yesterday was the first run of the season... More