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Mocha Frosting (No. 2)
3 ounces fresh butter 6 ounces icing sugar (sifted) 2 tablespoons coffee extract Put two layers of icing between cake layers and cover cake all over with the remainder, smoothing the sides with a warm knife and garnishing the top with a forcing pipe. Sprinkle with freshly chopped pistachio nuts.
A straightforward butter icing by weight rather than volume, which is worth keeping as written — the 1:2 butter-to-sugar ratio is what makes it pipeable.
- Weights into cups3 oz butter is 85 g, or 6 tablespoons. 6 oz sifted icing (confectioners') sugar is about 1½ cups, though sifted sugar packs unevenly; weigh it if you can.
- Coffee extractThe original means a concentrated liquid coffee flavouring, not brewed coffee. Two tablespoons of strong espresso or of instant coffee dissolved in a minimum of hot water works; add it a little at a time, since too much liquid will slacken the icing past piping consistency.
- Butter temperature"Fresh butter" means unsalted, newly made butter, as opposed to the salted or preserved kind. Have it properly soft at around 65–68F before beating, or the sugar will not incorporate smoothly and the icing will look grainy.
- The warm knifeThis is the instruction that does the work. Dip a palette knife in hot water, wipe it dry, and draw it over the sides — the residual heat melts the surface film of butter just enough to leave a glassy finish. Repeat between passes rather than working the icing harder.
- Forcing pipeA piping bag and nozzle; the recipe does not say which shape. Chill the finished cake briefly before piping the decoration so the base coat does not drag.
- PistachiosChop them shortly before use; cut surfaces dull and the oils stale on standing. Unsalted, unroasted nuts give the green the recipe is after.
- YieldEnough to fill and coat a two- or three-layer 8-inch cake thinly. If you want a generous coat plus piping, make half again.
- StorageButter icing firms hard in the refrigerator. Bring the cake back to room temperature for an hour before serving or the frosting will taste waxy.
"Mocha" in early twentieth-century baking meant coffee, taken from the Yemeni port of Mokha that gave its name to the coffee trade long before it meant a coffee-and-chocolate mixture. This icing carries no chocolate at all, which is typical of the period: a mocha cake was a coffee cake, and the pistachio garnish set pale green against tan. The Five Roses Cook Book, compiled from recipes sent in by Canadian housewives and issued by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company to promote its flour, was one of the most widely distributed cookbooks in Canada, and a piped, pistachio-trimmed mocha cake sits among its plainer offerings.