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Wine Frosting
To Boiled Frosting No. 2 add one tablespoon Madeira or sherry wine, and omit vanilla. 3 cups sugar 1½ cups water
A one-line variation on the book's boiled frosting, which is an Italian meringue: hot sugar syrup beaten into egg whites. Everything that matters here happens at the candy thermometer.
- The hinge: syrup temperatureBoil the 3 cups sugar and 1½ cups water without stirring to the soft-ball stage, about 238-240F; the book itself gives no temperature or test. Much below that and the frosting tends to stay runny and weep; much above and it is apt to set grainy and crack as you spread it.
- The missing egg whitesThe quantity given covers only the syrup, since the whites belonged to the parent recipe. A 3-cup sugar batch of this style normally takes 3 to 4 large whites, beaten to firm peaks before the syrup goes in, but the original is genuinely silent on the number.
- How to add the syrupPour it into the whites in a thin, steady stream against the side of the bowl with the mixer running, then beat until the bowl is only warm to the touch and the frosting holds a peak.
- Egg safetyThe hot syrup warms the whites considerably, but a meringue of this kind may not reach 160F throughout, so treat the whites as lightly cooked rather than fully cooked. If you are serving anyone who should avoid lightly cooked egg, use pasteurized whites.
- The wineOne tablespoon of Madeira or sherry in a batch this size is a scent rather than a flavor; the alcohol does not cook off. Use a dry to medium sherry (amontillado, oloroso) or a Sercial or Verdelho Madeira, not cream sherry or a bottle labeled "cooking wine." Add it at the very end, once the frosting is nearly cool, so it does not slacken the meringue.
- WeatherBoiled frostings absorb moisture. On a humid day the syrup wants an extra degree or two, and the finished frosting will still stay softer than usual.
- Yield and handlingEnough to fill and cover two 9-inch layers generously. Spread it while it is still glossy and pliable; it skins over within about ten minutes and will not smooth again.
Lowney's Cook Book (1907), compiled by Maria Willett Howard for the Walter M. Lowney chocolate company of Boston, is one of the more useful of the manufacturer-sponsored cookbooks: a full general household manual with the company's cocoa and chocolate threaded through it. Its dessert chapter follows the standard American pattern of the day, building a handful of base frostings and then listing one-line variations, so a whole family of flavors hangs off "Boiled Frosting No. 2." Fortified wines were an obvious choice for such variations, since Madeira and sherry had long been staples of the American sideboard. Wine-scented icings are often said to have faded from American cookbooks after 1920, with Prohibition removing the ingredient from ordinary kitchens and vanilla and almond extracts taking over the job, though the shift is more a traditional account than a documented one.