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Caramel Icing
22% C brown sugar 2 t butter ¾ C cream (or milk) 1 t vanilla Ruby Williams, Mrs. F. J. Wagner.
Cook butter, brown sugar and cream until a soft ball is formed, when tested in cold water. Add vanilla and beat until thick enough to spread. Sufficient for one cake.
Mrs. James Swan.
CHOCOLATE ICING No. 1 Mix 4 T cocoa with 2 T boiling water. Add 1 t or more of butter and enough Confectioner's sugar to make of spreading consistency. Add 1 T cream or milk if needed.
CHOCOLATE ICING, No. 2 Melt one ounce of chocolate in 1/2 C water over a rather hot fire. Add 1 t butter and boil well. Cool, and add ½ C sifted Confectioner's sugar. More may be necessary.
Mrs. R. M. Dillon. 1/2 C water Whites of 2 eggs
A boiled brown-sugar icing of the old school: cooked to the soft-ball stage, then beaten until it loses its gloss and thickens. The whole thing turns on candy temperature, not on time.
- QuantitiesThe sugar and cream figures have not survived cleanly in this printing. A workable reading is about 2 1/2 cups brown sugar to 3/4 cup cream or milk, with 2 teaspoons butter and 1 teaspoon vanilla.
- Soft ball, in numbersSoft ball is 235-240F on a candy thermometer. The cold-water test the recipe describes is reliable: a drop spooned into ice water should gather into a ball that flattens between the fingers.
- Use a heavy panBrown sugar and dairy scorch readily. A thick-bottomed saucepan, medium heat and steady stirring until the sugar dissolves, then a gentler simmer, keeps the caramel from catching.
- Cool before beatingBeating while the syrup is still near boiling gives a grainy icing. Let it drop to about 110F, then beat with a wooden spoon or a mixer until it dulls and thickens.
- Spread fastOnce it thickens it sets quickly. Work while it is still just spreadable, and if it stiffens in the bowl, a teaspoon of hot cream beaten in will loosen it.
- Brown sugarLight brown gives a mild butterscotch flavour, dark brown a stronger molasses note. Either works.
- YieldAs the book says, enough for one cake -- in practice a two-layer 8- or 9-inch cake, or the top and sides of a single sheet.
Boiled icings are often said to have dominated American home baking until the spread of cheap confectioner's sugar and electric mixers made uncooked buttercreams the default. Caramel icing is essentially penuche candy stopped one stage early: the same sugar, cream and butter, cooked to soft ball and beaten to a spreadable cream rather than poured out to set. On this page several versions of the same idea sit side by side under one heading, each with a different contributor's name attached -- Ruby Williams, Mrs. F. J. Wagner, Mrs. James Swan, Mrs. R. M. Dillon.