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Fruit Filling (Cups granulated sugar cup)
2 cups granulated sugar 2/3 cup boiling water whites of 2 eggs 1/4 cup chopped nuts 1 cup mixed figs, raisins, citron, cherries and pineapple, cut fine Dissolve sugar in boiling water; boil until syrup spins a thread; beat whites until dry; add syrup gradually, beating constantly; when cool add nuts and fruit. Spread between layers and on top of cake.
This is a boiled icing — Italian meringue with candied fruit folded in — and the whole thing hinges on the syrup temperature. Everything else is straightforward.
- "Spins a thread"Roughly the thread stage, usually given as about 230-234F on a candy thermometer, though period usage was loose and some boiled icings were taken a little higher. The syrup should fall from a spoon in a fine thread that holds for a moment before breaking. Too cool and the icing never sets; taken too far it tends to turn grainy and hard as it cools.
- "Beat whites until dry"Older cookbook phrasing for stiff peaks: the mass holds its shape and does not slide when the bowl is tilted. Do not beat past that point or the whites go granular and will not absorb the syrup smoothly.
- Adding the syrupPour in a thin, steady stream down the side of the bowl with the mixer running, avoiding the whisk itself, or the syrup flings and sets into hard threads. Keep beating until the bowl is barely warm, about 7-10 minutes with a stand mixer, then fold in the fruit and nuts by hand.
- Egg safetyThe hot syrup partially cooks the whites, but beating a syrup into them does not reliably bring the mixture to a pasteurising temperature. If you are serving anyone vulnerable, use pasteurized whites; they behave the same way here.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in the baking aisle at Christmas and by mail order otherwise. Candied orange or lemon peel is the nearest substitute; it is not the same as citron preserves.
- Cut the fruit dryBlot the candied cherries and pineapple before chopping. Syrup clinging to the fruit thins the icing and can make it weep within hours.
- HumidityBoiled icing is sugar and air. On a damp day it stays tacky and may slump; make it when the kitchen is dry, and frost the cake the day it is served.
- YieldRoughly enough to fill and top a two-layer cake. As written it is a filling and top frosting, not a coating for the sides.
Boiled icing was a common way of finishing an American layer cake from the later nineteenth century until buttercream and ready-made frosting largely displaced it in the mid-twentieth; cookbooks of the period call versions of it white mountain cream, seven-minute frosting, or simply boiled frosting, depending on whether the syrup is cooked before or with the whites. Loading it with chopped candied fruit, nuts and raisins was a way of turning a plain white or gold layer cake into something festive without a second baking step, and the mixture of figs, citron and glace cherries points at the holiday table.