Yes, but only barely. First of all, what is maple sugar? It's maple syrup that's reduced down until it's sugar. It has the consistency of very fine sand (think Kailua beach), about 4x as sweet as 'regular' sugar and definitely has a maple-praline-ish flavor. That's the good part. However, the 2.5 cup container I bought at Whole Foods was, wait for it, a whopping $16! Trader Joe's, Costco, Safeway all did not carry it in my area.

Thus, I'm revisiting the maple sugar-based recipes from last week. Plus I found a much cheaper, totally ono and acceptable compromise to add maple flavor to recipes

Maple ginger spice cake, revisited--Based on the very subtle maple flavor, especially compared to the strong molasses flavor, this recipe needs to be revised to switch out maple sugar for brown sugar. It was good, but not worth using maple sugar.

Maple streusel apple pie--The hit for maple here is in the streusel topping. In this case, a good strong maple flavor for the apple pie. Definitely worth using maple sugar here. Feeding My Ohana worthy, confirmed by my friend Arleen, who was our guinea pig.

Maple whipped cream--Easily the best, simplest, and most economical way to add maple flavor. Pour about a cup of heavy whipping cream with a about 2T of maple syrup, aand let the Kitchenaid or your hand-mixer do its thing until you get perfectly awesome maple whipped cream. Way, way, way cheaper than maple sugar. Totally Feeding My Ohana-worthy.

Watch for new recipes coming this weekend--for the maple streusel apple pie, plus plum sauce chicken, a new roasted chicken and sticky rice w/Portuguese sausage. More easy Hawaii food.