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Chocolate Glace Frosting
To glace frosting add one ounce melted Walter Baker & Co.'s Premium No. 1 Chocolate and one tablespoon boiling water.
This is a variation line, not a standalone recipe: it assumes you already have a batch of glacé frosting from elsewhere in the book. What follows fills in the gaps a modern cook will hit.
- What glacé frosting isWhat glace frosting is -- In books of this era a glace (or "glace") frosting is generally a thin poured glaze rather than a beaten buttercream — confectioners' sugar moistened with hot water or a light sugar syrup, sometimes with a little egg white, worked smooth and spread while warm so it sets to a glossy shell. The size of the batch these additions are meant for is not stated here; check the book's own glace frosting recipe before scaling.
- Premium No. 1 ChocolateWalter Baker's Premium No. 1 was plain unsweetened chocolate, sold in cakes scored into squares. One ounce is one square of any modern unsweetened baking chocolate. Do not substitute semi-sweet or cocoa powder without adjusting: cocoa powder absorbs liquid and will stiffen the glaze rather than loosen it.
- Melt gentlyUnsweetened chocolate scorches easily over direct heat, and a stray drop of water will make it seize. Melt it in a bowl over hot, not boiling, water, or in short bursts in a microwave, and stir it smooth before it goes anywhere near the sugar.
- Why the tablespoon of boiling waterThe recipe does not say, but the water presumably keeps the frosting fluid after the chocolate thickens it, and boiling water will stop the cocoa butter setting on contact with the cool sugar. Add the chocolate and the boiling water together and beat quickly; if it still drags, add hot water a teaspoon at a time until it ribbons off the spoon.
- Work warmThis is the hinge. Glacé frosting sets as it cools, so pour or spread it the moment it is smooth, in one pass, and let it level itself. Going back over a partly set surface leaves streaks and dull patches.
- YieldThe addition is one ounce of chocolate and a tablespoon of water to whatever quantity of glace frosting the base recipe makes, so the yield is set by that recipe, not by this line. Like other poured sugar glazes it will firm at room temperature and is better not refrigerated, which dulls the shine.
Choice Recipes was one of a long series of pamphlets the Walter Baker & Co. mill at Dorchester, Massachusetts, published to keep its chocolate in American kitchens — the firm dated its business to 1780 and traded hard on that age. Recipes like this one are collected as chocolate variants of standard household preparations: the book gives a plain frosting, then tells the cook how to convert it, which is both a convenience and an advertisement, since the conversion requires the company's Premium No. 1.