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Divinity Frosting
1 cup brown sugar 3 tablespoons water 1 egg white 1 teaspoon vanilla Boil the sugar and water until it forms a soft ball when dropped into cold water. Proceed as with Boiled Frosting.
A two-line recipe that assumes you already know boiled frosting, which is the Italian-meringue method: hot syrup beaten into whipped egg white. The instruction it leaves out is the one that matters.
- The hinge: pour, don't dumpBeat the egg white to soft peaks first, then add the syrup in a thin steady stream down the side of the bowl while beating. Poured in all at once it cooks the white into threads and the frosting never builds volume.
- Soft ball, in numbersRoughly 235-240F on a thermometer. The cold-water test is reliable enough if you drop a little syrup into a cup of cold water and it gathers into a ball that flattens between your fingers; below that the frosting stays soupy, above it turns grainy and sets before you can spread it.
- Egg white quantityOne white to a cup of sugar is a firm, quite sweet frosting. A large egg white is about 2 tablespoons; if yours are small, use the volume rather than the count.
- Brown sugarPeriod brown sugar was less uniform than today's. Light brown gives a caramel-colored frosting; dark brown gives a molasses flavor strong enough to dominate a plain cake. Pack it when measuring.
- Vanilla goes in lastAdd it after the syrup is fully beaten in and the bowl has cooled to warm, or the alcohol carries the flavor off with the steam.
- Beat until it holdsKeep the mixer going 5-8 minutes after the syrup is in, until the meringue is glossy, thick, and the bowl is no longer hot. It should hold a peak that curls slightly.
- WeatherBoiled and divinity frostings absorb moisture. On a humid day they stay tacky and may weep; cook the syrup 2 degrees higher, or make it another day.
- YieldA modest amount: enough to cover the top and sides of one 8-inch layer, or the top of a 9-inch square. Spread it while it is still soft and workable, since it firms as it cools.
Divinity is an American confection of the same family as nougat and Italian meringue: boiled sugar syrup beaten into egg white until it holds its shape. It appears in cookbooks from the early twentieth century, and the name is generally traced to nothing more specific than praise for how it tastes. The candy version is usually made with white sugar and corn syrup and dropped in spoonfuls to set; this is the frosting adaptation, and the substitution of brown sugar for white gives it the caramel note that in some books earns it the name sea foam. Here it is written as a variation, a line or two of departure from the Boiled Frosting it cross-references.