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Water Frosting
1 cup powdered sugar 1 tablespoon lemon or orange juice 1 tablespoon boiling water or milk Stir the boiling water into the sugar, and add the lemon juice. If too stiff, add a little more boiling water. Melted chocolate and vanilla may be used instead of the lemon or orange.
A plain water icing, the kind meant to be poured over a cooled cake or bun rather than piped. It takes two minutes and needs no cooking.
- Powdered sugarThe nearest modern equivalent is confectioners' sugar, sold as 10X and cut with a little cornstarch, though period "powdered" sugar was not always as fine. Sift it before mixing or the glaze will be gritty with lumps that stirring is slow to dissolve.
- Why boiling waterHot liquid dissolves the sugar crystals more readily than cold, which helps give the glaze its gloss and smooth set. Cold water will work, but tends to give a duller, less even result.
- Proportions are a starting pointOne cup of sugar to two tablespoons of liquid is stiff enough to sit on top of a cake without running off the sides. For a thin drizzle that pools, work up to a tablespoon more liquid, added a few drops at a time -- the margin between too thick and too thin is very narrow.
- Order of mixingAdd the boiling water first and the juice second, as written; the hot water does the dissolving, and the juice is then stirred into an already smooth glaze.
- The chocolate variationThe recipe gives no quantities; an ounce or so of melted chocolate with a little vanilla is a reasonable reading. Chocolate replaces the juice, so a little extra water may be needed to bring the glaze to a spreading consistency.
- Yield and applicationRoughly enough for the top of one 8-inch layer, a loaf cake, or a dozen small buns. Spread it on a cool cake rather than a warm one, and let it set before cutting.
Water icing of this sort is often said to have been the everyday alternative to boiled frosting and butter icing in American and British household cookery from around the middle of the nineteenth century onward, an availability sometimes linked to the spread of cheap finely ground sugar, though the evidence for that is thinner than the claim usually suggests. The name simply distinguishes it from those richer frostings -- the liquid is water, not cream, butter or beaten white -- and it is still sold in bakeries under the label of glacé icing.