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Marshmallow Icing
2 C powdered sugar ½ C marshmallow creme Cream or evaporated milk Almond or other extract When sugar is sifted add enough cream to make the icing ready for spreading. Stir in Marshmallow Creme. Add flavoring and spread on cake. Cover with cocoanut or chopped nutmeats.
Mrs. Frank J. Wright
A no-cook icing that depends entirely on how much liquid you add, since the recipe never names a quantity. Work slowly and stop while it is still stiff enough to hold a ridge.
- The cream is the whole recipeAdd the cream a teaspoon at a time to the sifted sugar. Marshmallow creme is itself soft and will loosen the mixture further, so the sugar paste should start noticeably stiffer than you want the finished icing.
- Quantities2 cups powdered sugar is about 8 oz / 225 g. A 7 oz jar of marshmallow creme is roughly 1½ cups by volume, so one standard jar covers it. Expect enough to ice the top and sides of a single 8- or 9-inch layer, or the top of a 9x13.
- Sifting is not optionalPowdered sugar compacts in the box and will leave hard lumps that never dissolve in a cold icing. Sift before measuring.
- Evaporated milkThe recipe offers it as an equal alternative to cream because it kept unrefrigerated on a shelf. It is slightly thinner and a little caramelised in flavour; whole milk works the same way.
- Almond extractUse a scant ¼ teaspoon to start. Almond extract is far more concentrated than vanilla and will overwhelm marshmallow quickly.
- Marshmallow creme substituteIf none is on hand, a meringue of two egg whites beaten to stiff peaks with hot sugar syrup gives a similar body, though the icing then sets rather than staying tacky.
- Coconut"Cocoanut" most likely means commercially shredded coconut, sold in boxes and cans from the 1890s onward, though the recipe does not say whether sweetened or plain. Press it on while the icing is still wet; it will not adhere once a crust forms.
- KeepingThe surface skins over within an hour or two but the interior stays soft. Cover loosely rather than wrapping tightly, which pulls the coconut off.
Marshmallow creme reached American home kitchens in the 1910s and 1920s as a jarred convenience product, and church and club cookbooks of the period absorbed it fast — it turned a fussy boiled-and-beaten seven-minute frosting into something a cook could stir together cold in five minutes. The name of the confection itself goes back to marsh mallow, Althaea officinalis, whose mucilaginous root was once whipped with sugar into a lozenge; by the time this recipe was contributed, no actual mallow had been involved for decades. A recipe crediting Mrs. Frank J. Wright by her husband's name, with a jarred product at its centre, is very much of its moment.