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Chocolate Filling and Icing (Cups confectioner's sugar)
3 cups confectioner's sugar boiling water 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate (2 squares) 1/2 teaspoon grated orange peel To sugar add boiling water very slowly to make a smooth paste; add vanilla, melted chocolate and orange peel. Spread between layers and on top of cake.
A water icing rather than a buttercream — the only fat comes from the chocolate itself, so it sets firm and slightly matte. The whole recipe hinges on how little water you add.
- The water is the whole trickThe recipe leaves the water unmeasured, so add it very slowly, a teaspoon at a time once the mass begins to come together. The paste should be thick enough to hold a ribbon off the spoon; if it goes too thin you will need a good deal more sifted sugar to bring it back.
- Sift the sugar firstModern powdered sugar still packs and clumps, and period confectioner's sugar may well have been lumpier still. Sift before mixing or the icing will be speckled with hard beads that never dissolve.
- Unsweetened chocolate squaresThe "2 squares" refers to the 1-ounce blocks in which Baker's and similar brands were then sold. Modern unsweetened baking chocolate is often a bar scored into half-ounce sections, so weigh out the 2 ounces rather than counting squares. Melt it over hot water and let it cool to barely warm before adding, or it will thin the paste.
- Order of operationsAdd the melted chocolate last, after the paste is smooth and the vanilla is in. Chocolate dropped into dry sugar seizes into lumps that will not smooth out.
- Orange peelGrate it fine from an unwaxed orange and use the zest only; any white pith turns bitter against unsweetened chocolate. Half a teaspoon is a background note, not an orange icing — increase it if you want the flavor to read.
- YieldAbout enough to fill and top a two-layer 8- or 9-inch cake, which is all the recipe directs. It may not stretch to the sides; if you want them covered, expect to make more.
- Working timeSpread it while still soft. This kind of icing tends to skin over fairly quickly and can crack if you go back over a surface that has begun to set, so have the cake layers ready and level before you start mixing.
Water icings like this one are often said to belong to a period when butter was expensive and refrigeration uncertain, and a sugar-and-water frosting was traditionally reckoned to keep better on the sideboard than a butter-based one. The New Royal Cook Book was published by the Royal Baking Powder Company as promotional literature, one of the booklets American food companies issued from the 1890s through the 1930s, built around layer cakes leavened with the sponsor's product, which is why fillings and icings appear as a cluster of interchangeable formulas rather than as part of any single cake. The pairing of orange zest with unsweetened chocolate is older than the book.