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Confectioner's Frosting
Two tablespoons boiling water or cream and a little flavoring essence of vanilla, lemon, or almond. Add enough confectioner's sugar to the liquid to make of right consistency to spread. 1 egg yolk 1 cup sugar
This is the simplest of all icings — liquid, flavouring, and as much sifted sugar as it takes — and the printing here has run two versions together. The trailing "1 egg yolk 1 cup sugar" belongs to a richer variant and is not part of the method above.
- The hinge: add sugar to the liquid, not the reverseTwo tablespoons of liquid is the fixed quantity; the sugar is the variable. Sift it in a little at a time and stop when the icing falls from the spoon in a thick ribbon that levels itself slowly.
- How much sugar that actually isExpect roughly 1 1/2 to 2 cups of confectioner's sugar for two tablespoons of liquid, more in humid weather. The recipe gives no figure, since sugar and kitchens vary.
- Confectioner's sugar has changedPeriod confectioner's sugar was often coarser and lumpier than today's; modern 10X is finer and contains up to about 3 percent cornstarch, which may thicken the icing slightly faster. Sift it regardless — undissolved lumps will not smooth out later.
- Water or creamBoiling water gives a thin, translucent glaze that dries to a firm crust. Cream gives an opaque, softer icing that tends to stay tacky longer.
- "A little flavoring essence"Read this as 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla, lemon, or almond extract. Almond in particular is potent enough that a half teaspoon dominates a whole cake.
- The stray egg yolkThe orphaned line appears to belong to a yolk-enriched version, but no method for it is printed here. Leave it out: two tablespoons of boiling water will not bring a raw yolk anywhere near a safe temperature, and the icing works perfectly well without it.
- Yield and applicationEnough to glaze the top of one 8- or 9-inch layer, or about a dozen small cakes. Spread on a completely cooled cake — on a warm one the icing thins, runs off the sides, and soaks in.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Montreal and given away or sold cheaply to buyers of Five Roses flour. A plain confectioner's icing like this one belonged to the era when finely ground sugar became a reliable grocery item rather than something a cook pounded and sieved at home, and it stood at the easy end of a scale that ran up through boiled icings and fondant to the professional's poured sugar work. Its appeal was that it required no thermometer, no sugar boiling, and no judgment about the thread or soft-ball stage — only the ability to tell when a mixture was thick enough to spread.