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Delicious Honey Frosting
2 1/4 cups powdered sugar 2 egg whites 1/4 cup honey 2 tablespoons lemon juice Sift the powdered sugar. Beat whites of eggs to a stiff froth, add sugar slowly, beating all the time. When it begins to get thick, add a little honey, then sugar, then lemon juice and so on until well mixed. It takes about fifteen minutes to make this frosting.
This is an uncooked meringue-style frosting: the egg whites are beaten with sugar, honey and lemon juice and never heated at any stage.
- Raw egg white, never heatedNothing in this method brings the whites above room temperature, and the frosting is eaten as made. Uncooked egg white carries a Salmonella risk that beating and sugar do not remove; a stiff, dry meringue texture is no indication that the egg is safe.
- Acid and sugar are not a kill stepThe two tablespoons of lemon juice and the heavy load of powdered sugar lower water activity and pH somewhat, but not to a level or for a duration that reliably inactivates pathogens. Frostings of this type are often left at room temperature on a cake for hours, which works in the other direction.
- Who is most at riskAnyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immunocompromised should not eat an uncooked-egg frosting at all. Use a current recipe -- one built on a cooked syrup or on pasteurised whites -- if you want this flavour.
- Honey and infantsSeparately from the egg question, honey should never be given to a child under one year old because of the risk of infant botulism. That applies to any uncooked honey preparation, including this one.
- Powdered sugarThe period term is not necessarily identical to what a modern shop sells as confectioners' or icing sugar, which is more finely ground and cut with a little cornstarch. The instruction to sift suggests a sugar that tended to lump.
- The fifteen minutesThe long beating time reflects hand beating of a mixture that never gets the structural help of hot syrup. It tells you the frosting was worked until well mixed and thick, not that time itself does anything to the eggs.