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Pink Icing
Put the whites of two eggs into a bowl and beat them lightly. Add, gradually, icing sugar to make a stiffish paste, and mix but do not work the ingredients. Add now and then three or four drops of lemon-juice and a drop of cochineal until the mixture looks thick, smooth, shiny, and as deeply coloured as is desired. The icing should be spread fully a quarter of an inch thick over the cake, or whatever it is used for, and should be placed in a cool oven until dry. If the eggs are beaten to a firm froth, the icing will not dry so easily. Time to mix the paste, till it is stiff. Probable cost, 6d. for this quantity.
This is royal icing under an older name, coloured with cochineal. The instructions are sound but assume a coal range and a Victorian sugar loaf; a few points need translating.
- Don't beat the whites stiffThe recipe says so at the end, but it is the hinge of the whole thing. Air whipped into the whites makes a bubbled, chalky icing that stays tacky in the middle. Break the whites up with a fork only until loose and slack, then work the sugar in.
- How much icing sugarThe original gives no weight because it depends on the eggs. Two large whites (about 70g) will take roughly 400-500g of sifted icing sugar to reach a stiff, spreadable paste. Sift it — sugar was often pounded and sieved at home in this period, and modern icing sugar still lumps.
- "Mix but do not work"Beating hard develops the same bubbles the recipe warns against and leaves the icing dull rather than shiny. Fold and press with a spatula until smooth.
- A cool ovenVictorian 'cool' ovens are generally reckoned at somewhere around 200-250F (95-120C), a range dying down overnight; the book itself gives no figure. A modern oven at its lowest setting with the door ajar, for an hour or two, does the same job. Left at room temperature the icing will set hard in 12-24 hours.
- CochinealCarmine, made from dried scale insects — still sold as a food colouring but no longer a kitchen staple, and not vegetarian. A drop or two of any red food colouring gives the same effect; the recipe leaves the depth of colour to the cook.
- Lemon juiceThe acid does more than flavour: it is the traditional whitener for this kind of icing. Three or four drops at a time is deliberate — too much and the paste slackens and you are back to adding sugar.
- A quarter inch is thickThat is about 6mm. A modern coat of 2-3mm is plenty unless you want the period depth.
- Raw egg whiteThe icing is dried, not cooked, so the whites never reach a safe temperature. Use pasteurised egg white or meringue powder if serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immunocompromised.
- YieldEnough to cover the top and sides of a single 8-inch cake, or the tops of two.
The technique — egg white, sifted sugar, a little acid, dried slowly — is essentially unchanged royal icing, a name often traced to the elaborate white-iced cakes of nineteenth-century royal weddings, though that account is traditional rather than documented and the method itself is older. Cochineal was a common pink colouring in the Victorian kitchen, imported from Mexico and later the Canary Islands and sold by the chemist alongside the essences and colourings that let a cook tint blancmanges and creams; it is why so many period recipes ask for "a drop of cochineal" as casually as a drop of vanilla. The cost note of sixpence, and the assumption of an oven cool enough to dry rather than bake, both belong to a house with a range kept in all day.