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White Mountain Cream
1 cup sugar 1/3 cup cold water White 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon vanilla or 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice Put sugar and water in saucepan, and stir to prevent sugar from adhering to saucepan; heat gradually to boiling-point, and boil without stirring until syrup will thread when dropped from tip of spoon or tines of silver fork. Pour syrup gradually on beaten white of egg, beating mixture constantly, and continue beating until of right consistency to spread; then add flavoring and pour over cake, spreading evenly with back of spoon. Crease as soon as firm. If not beaten long enough, frosting will run; if beaten too long, it will not be smooth. Frosting beaten too long may be improved by adding a few drops of lemon juice or boiling water. This frosting is soft inside, and has a glossy surface. If frosting is to be ornamented with nuts or candied cherries, place them on frosting as soon as spread.
A boiled-sugar frosting of the Italian meringue family, cooked to a low soft-thread stage rather than the firmer syrup used for today's meringue buttercreams. Success turns entirely on judging the syrup and stopping the beating at the right moment.
- Thread stage, in numbersThe syrup threads from the spoon at roughly 230-235F on a candy thermometer. Below that the frosting will never set; much above it and the icing turns stiff and grainy before you can spread it.
- Do not stir after boilingThe instruction to stir applies only while the sugar dissolves. Once the syrup boils, agitation seeds crystals. Wash any sugar off the pan sides with a wet pastry brush and leave it alone.
- Pour thin and slowAdd the hot syrup to the already stiffly beaten white in a thin stream down the side of the bowl, never into the beaters, or it will spin into hard threads against the sides.
- Beating time with a machineA stand mixer on medium-high needs about five to seven minutes after the syrup goes in, until the bowl is barely warm and the frosting holds a soft peak that still flows a little. The warning about over-beating is real: past that point it goes dull and short and will tear the cake surface.
- "Crease as soon as firm"This means scoring the top into serving portions with a knife as soon as the surface has set but before it hardens, so the crust cracks along the cuts instead of shattering later.
- Egg sizeEggs were not graded to modern standards in this period, so the white may have run a little smaller or larger than a modern large one. With one large white the ratio is still workable, but expect a slightly softer set.
- YieldEnough to fill and cover a single 8-inch layer cake, or to top a 9-inch sheet. It is not a piping frosting; spread it in swirls with the back of a spoon as directed.
- Raw white and humidityThe white is warmed but not reliably pasteurized at this syrup temperature. Use pasteurized whites if serving anyone pregnant, elderly or immunocompromised. On a damp day the frosting will stay tacky and may weep, so make it in dry weather and serve the same day.