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Boiled Frosting
1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla, or 1/2 cup water Whites 2 eggs 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice Make same as White Mountain Cream. This frosting, on account of the larger quantity of egg, does not stiffen so quickly as White Mountain Cream, therefore is more successfully made by the inexperienced.
An Italian-meringue frosting: hot sugar syrup beaten into whipped egg whites. The method sits under White Mountain Cream elsewhere in the book, so the working detail is the syrup stage rather than anything in the list above.
- The hinge: syrup stageBoil the sugar and water without stirring until the syrup spins a thread from the spoon, which is how the book judges it; no temperature is given. On a thermometer the thread stage falls in the region of 230-240F. Under-boiled, the frosting stays runny; boiled much further it sets hard and crumbly before you can spread it.
- Method in briefBeat the whites to firm peaks while the syrup cooks, then pour the syrup down the side of the bowl in a thin steady stream with the mixer running. Keep beating until the bowl is barely warm and the meringue holds a peak, five to eight minutes in a stand mixer.
- QuantitiesOne cup sugar is about 200 g; two egg whites about 60-70 g. The half cup of water is not a critical proportion; it simply boils away as the syrup reduces to the thread stage.
- Vanilla or lemonThe flavourings are alternatives, not both. Add either at the very end, once the meringue has cooled, so the volatile oils are not driven off by the hot syrup.
- Why it is the easier versionThe extra white relative to sugar keeps the mixture softer and workable for longer, which is exactly the book's point. It also means it will not hold sharp piped detail; spread it in swirls with a palette knife.
- HumidityBoiled frostings weep and stay tacky in damp weather. Make it on a dry day, and use it the day it is made rather than refrigerating, which makes it sweat.
- YieldEnough to fill and cover one 8- or 9-inch two-layer cake, or to top a batch of cupcakes.
Boiled frosting and its close relative White Mountain Cream belong to the late nineteenth-century American cake table, alongside dependable granulated sugar and the hand-cranked egg beater, both of which made a cooked meringue icing easier to manage in a home kitchen. Cooks judged the syrup by eye, watching for the "thread" that spun from a lifted spoon, since candy thermometers were still uncommon in domestic use. The frosting is structurally the same thing a pastry kitchen calls Italian meringue, and the pairing of a plain version with a slightly more forgiving one -- as here, with the extra white recommended for the inexperienced -- fits the way these books also served as teaching texts.