Plain Frosting
1 cup powdered or confectioners' sugar 2 tablespoons milk or water 1/4 teaspoon vanilla Add only enough liquid to make a moderately thick paste; different grades of sugar may require different amounts. Two tablespoons of cocoa or grated chocolate, melted, may be added if desired.
A one-cup uncooked glaze, the sort of frosting meant to be spread thin and left to set rather than piled up. The only real skill is holding back the liquid.
- Add the liquid a teaspoon at a timeAdd the liquid gradually -- a teaspoon at a time. The recipe itself notes that different grades of sugar may require different amounts, so treat the two tablespoons as a guide rather than a fixed measure; once the paste is thin the only fix is more sugar, which throws the balance again.
- "Powdered" versus confectioners' sugarIn books of this period powdered sugar could mean granulated sugar ground finer rather than the cornstarch-blended sugar sold today. Modern confectioners' sugar will do here, and dissolves without grittiness; the recipe treats the two names as interchangeable.
- Sift firstSifting or a brief whisk removes lumps that will not dissolve in so little liquid.
- YieldOne cup of sugar makes enough thin glaze for the top of an 8- or 9-inch layer, or about a dozen small cakes. Double it to fill and cover a two-layer cake.
- The cocoa versionCocoa powder absorbs moisture, so two tablespoons stirred in will stiffen the paste noticeably; expect to add another teaspoon or two of liquid. Grated chocolate should be melted and cooled slightly before it goes in, or it will seize into specks.
- Milk or waterWater gives a clearer, glossier glaze that dries harder. Milk gives an opaque, softer frosting that stays slightly tacky and is better eaten the same day.
- Spread on a cool cakeOn anything still warm this frosting will thin and run off the sides. Let it set at room temperature, uncovered, for half an hour before stacking or wrapping.
Uncooked sugar frostings like this one are the plain end of a spectrum that ran, in early twentieth-century cake chapters, from boiled seven-minute and fondant icings down to a bowl of sugar stirred with a spoonful of milk. Smooth uncooked icing depends on very finely ground sugar, and where that could not readily be bought a cook had to pound and sift her own. The entry is a short, memorizable formula with a built-in caution that different sugars behave differently, and a variation line so the same page covers both white and chocolate.