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Gum Arabic Icing
To give to cake icing the tenacity that allows borders of fringe and loop work to be made on cakes, with strings of fine piping hanging between points several inches apart without breaking, mix with every pound of fine powdered sugar from 1 to 2 ounces of gum arabic. Powder the gum and dissolve it first in a spoonful of hot water in a cup set on the side of the range, and add a little at a time to the icing while beating it up. The paste of gum tragacanth (gum dragon) as prepared for making gum paste can also be used in the same manner.
The ordinary methods and means employed for cake and center piece ornamention having now been explained the writer will here state that he has a different method of his own, which produces ornamental effects incomparably superior to the common clumsy pyramid of cakes or the unmeaning and futile temple of gum paste, and which have gained the admiration of some of the people whose approbation in such matters decides the question of merit. The new method may be fully explained with the aid of illustrations, in a few additional pages at some future time.
A Few Candies for Amateur Candy Pullers.
The French confectioners recognize as many as twelve stages or degrees in boiling sugar, ranging from the "petit lisse" to the "caramel noir"--from simple syrup to burnt sugar caramel. However, we have not time to learn the degrees--only just a little time to make some candy.
This is a formula rather than a full recipe: it tells a pastry cook how to stiffen ordinary royal icing so piped strings will span a gap without sagging or snapping. The proportions still work, and gum arabic is still sold as a food ingredient.
- The hinge: dissolve the gum first, add it slowlyDry gum arabic stirred into icing forms lumps that never disperse and will block a fine tube mid-string. Powder it, dissolve it fully in a little hot water, strain if there is any grit, and beat it into the icing a spoonful at a time so the consistency can be judged as you go.
- Proportions in metricOne to two ounces per pound of sugar is roughly 30 to 55 g of gum per 450 g of powdered sugar, or about 6 to 12 percent by weight of the sugar. Start at the lower end; the higher rate gives icing that dries glassy and brittle and is meant for long unsupported loops, not for spreading.
- "Set on the side of the range"A coal range was hottest over the firebox and cooler at the edges, so this means a gentle, steady warmth rather than a boil. A cup in a pan of hot water off the heat does the same job; gum arabic dissolves slowly, so allow time for soaking and stirring until no grains remain.
- Which gum to buyGum arabic is acacia gum, sold food-grade in powder or in tears; the tears must be pounded and sieved. Avoid art-supply gum arabic sold for watercolour binding, which is not certified for food use.
- Gum tragacanth and its modern replacementGum tragacanth, the "gum dragon" of the trade, is still available but expensive and slow to hydrate. Most decorators now use CMC (tylose) powder for the same stiffening effect at a much lower rate, on the order of a teaspoon per pound of sugar.
- The icing itself is assumedThe author takes the base for granted: powdered sugar beaten with egg white, what we call royal icing. Since piped work of this kind is never cooked, use pasteurized whites or meringue powder.
- Working conditionsGum-stiffened icing skins over fast and pulls threads badly in humid air. Keep the bowl covered with a damp cloth, work in a dry room, and let finished string work dry undisturbed for several hours before moving the cake.
- Eating qualityAt the two-ounce rate the icing sets hard enough to be structural and is chewy rather than pleasant to eat. Reserve it for the fringe and loop work and ice the cake itself with plain royal or buttercream.
Gum arabic is the dried exudate of acacia trees, harvested for millennia and carried along trade routes to Europe; its name is often said to derive from the Arabian trade, though the etymology is not certain. By the late nineteenth century it was standard stock in a hotel pastry department, used for pastillage, for glazing, and, as here, for turning royal icing into something with tensile strength. The passage sits in a chapter on centerpiece work, and the writer's impatience with "the common clumsy pyramid of cakes or the unmeaning and futile temple of gum paste" is a jab at the pièce montée tradition inherited from Carême, which had hardened into a set of hotel clichés. The promised explanation of his own superior method, in "a few additional pages at some future time," is a reminder that these trade manuals were written by working cooks with an eye on their own reputations, and that the promised sequel did not always arrive.