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Gelatine Frosting
1 teaspoon granulated gelatine ¼ cup boiling water 1 tablespoon cold water confectioners' sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla Soak gelatine in cold water; add boiling water, stir until dissolved; add sugar until of consistency to spread. Flavor and use.
A no-cook icing that sets by gelatine rather than by beaten egg white or boiled syrup. The quantities as printed have suffered in transcription, and the sugar is left entirely to judgement.
- The water measure"4 cup boiling water" is almost certainly a mangled ¼ cup — a quarter cup of boiling water to 1 teaspoon gelatine and 1 tablespoon cold water. Four cups would never thicken with any reasonable amount of sugar.
- Granulated gelatineOne teaspoon is a little under half a modern 1/4-oz envelope. Sprinkle it over the cold water and let it stand until it swells and goes opaque, three to five minutes, before the boiling water goes in.
- Sugar by feelConfectioners' sugar is added until spreadable; the recipe gives no figure, and a quarter cup of liquid will take a great deal of it. Sift it and add it in stages; the frosting stiffens further as it cools, so stop while it still moves easily.
- Work warm, work fastThis is the hinge. Gelatine sets as it drops toward room temperature, so the frosting must go onto the cake while still fluid. If it firms up in the bowl, set the bowl briefly over hot water rather than adding more liquid.
- Beating for volumeBeaten as it cools, the mixture whitens and gains volume, closer to a marshmallow frosting. Stirred only, as written, it stays translucent and glaze-like.
- YieldThe recipe states no yield; a quarter cup of liquid makes a modest amount, enough for the top of a single cake or a small batch of cupcakes.
- KeepingIt skins over as it sets and cuts without cracking. Refrigeration tends to make it rubbery; keep the finished cake at room temperature under a dome.
Gelatine frostings belong to a moment in American baking when packaged granulated gelatine -- commercially available in pre-measured form from around the 1890s, and no longer requiring hours of simmering calves' feet -- was being tried in every corner of the kitchen. For a frosting it solved a real problem: it needed no candy thermometer, unlike boiled icing. Lowney's was a Boston chocolate company, and its cook book, like other manufacturer-issued books, filled out its chapters with practical foundation recipes of this sort. The instruction to add sugar "until of consistency to spread" is characteristic of the period, when cooks were expected to judge a mixture by eye and the printed page gave only the framework.