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Fresh Strawberry Icing
Crush ten strawberries with a little sugar and let stand until juicy; then mix in gradually three cups of confectioner's sugar; add a teaspoon of lemon flavoring. Spread between layers and on top of cake.
An uncooked fruit icing that depends entirely on the ratio of berry juice to sugar, so treat the quantities as a starting point rather than a formula.
- Berry sizeStrawberries of the period were often smaller than the large modern cultivated fruit, so ten of them may yield less juice than ten berries would today. Start with four or five, hull and crush them, and add more only if the icing is too stiff.
- Confectioner's sugarThree cups is about 12 oz / 340 g. Sift it, since undissolved lumps will not break down in cold juice the way they do in a cooked frosting.
- The hinge: let the berries weep firstThe sugar sprinkled on the crushed fruit draws out juice by osmosis, and that juice is the only liquid in the recipe. Give it 15 to 30 minutes at room temperature; rushing it leaves you adding water or milk, which dulls the flavor and thins the set.
- ConsistencyAim for a thick, spreadable glaze that mounds slightly on the spoon. If it runs, add sugar 2 tablespoons at a time; if it cracks and drags, add juice by the half-teaspoon.
- Lemon flavoringIn recipes of this kind "flavoring" generally meant an extract rather than juice; juice would add acid and liquid that slackens the icing. A full teaspoon of extract will taste assertive to most modern cooks, so half a teaspoon, or the grated zest of half a lemon, is worth trying.
- StrainingThe original leaves the seeds and pulp in, which is honest but gives a slightly grainy icing. Pressing the crushed fruit through a fine sieve gives a smoother, more evenly pink result at the cost of some body.
- Yield and keepingEnough for one two-layer 8- or 9-inch cake, filled and topped. Because it contains raw fruit juice it will weep and dull within a day; ice the cake the day it is served and keep it cool.
Cakes iced with raw fruit and confectioner's sugar became practical only after industrial sugar refining put finely powdered sugar within reach of ordinary households in the later nineteenth century; before that, icings were built from beaten egg white or from sugar boiled to a thread and had to be judged by eye and temperature. Books issued by baking powder companies promoted layer cakes heavily — chemical leavening made a reliable, tender, splittable cake possible without yeast or long beating — and simple uncooked icings like this one were the natural finish, requiring no candy thermometer and no second trip to the stove. The recipe also reflects a seasonal habit that has largely disappeared: strawberries appeared for a few weeks in early summer, and were used fresh while they lasted.