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Frosting
HE old method of making frosting is no longer followed. It used to be thought necessary to beat the white of the egg to a very stiff froth and then to add the sugar. Frosting made in this way is extremely hard when cut and after a few days can scarcely be cut at all. There are many kinds of frostings made just now, but none are prepared in this way, except for elaborate decorating. A cake should always be cold to receive frosting. A frosted cake may be readily decorated as soon as the icing is set. When a name or date is to be placed on a cake, the icing for the purpose may be colored with red sugar, dissolved chocolate or cochineal. Trace the name or date on the center of the iced surface of the cake with a pencil, and then follow the lines with the frosting, pouring it from a confectioner's funnel or a cornucopia of stiff paper having a small point.
FROSTING (Plain) -One egg (white only); eight even tablespoons of powdered (or confectioners' sugar); one-half teaspoon of vanilla. Beat the egg only enough to thin it, being careful not to make it frothy; then add the sugar, and stir with a fork until the frosting is perfectly smooth and light. The longer it is beaten the finer it will be. Add the vanilla, mixing it in thoroughly.
This is uncooked royal icing: raw egg white stirred with confectioners' sugar and spread on a cake that will sit at room temperature for days. The technique notes are still sound, but the icing itself is built on an ingredient that is never heated.
- Raw egg white, never cookedNothing in this method brings the white above room temperature, and the finished icing sits out on the cake for its whole life. Shell eggs can carry Salmonella on the shell and inside the white, and sugar alone does not inactivate it. Use a current recipe built on pasteurized whites or meringue powder instead.
- Sugar is not a preservative hereThe 8 tablespoons of sugar to one white gives a stiff paste, but that is not enough to make the icing safe by sugar concentration alone, even though the surface sets hard. A hard-set crust should not be treated as evidence that the icing is shelf-stable.
- CochinealCochineal is carmine, extracted from scale insects, and is still a legal food colour, sold as carmine or E120. It is not vegetarian and is a recognised allergen for a small number of people. "Red sugar" here most likely means coloured sanding sugar, dissolved for tinting.
- Confectioner's funnel and paper cornucopiaBoth are ancestors of the piping bag and tip. A parchment cone rolled to a fine point does exactly what the book describes and is still used for fine lettering.
- Pencil on the cakeThis book directs tracing the lettering with a pencil directly on the set icing; it is not something to carry over. Modern work uses a food-safe marker or a pinprick template.
- Why the old method was abandonedThe opening paragraph is describing the real difference between beating the white to a stiff froth first, which sets to a brittle meringue-hard shell, and simply loosening it and stirring in the sugar, which gives a denser, softer icing. That observation about texture is accurate and still holds for royal icing generally.
- CoverageOne white with roughly half a cup of confectioners' sugar makes a thin coat for a single 8-inch layer top, or enough for decorative piping on a larger cake. It is not enough to cover the sides.
Earlier nineteenth-century books called for loaf sugar pounded and sifted at home, and commercially milled powdered sugar became widely available later; the shift may help explain why beating the white to a froth first came to seem unnecessary and, as the author notes, actively unwelcome. The paper cornucopia was the home cook's answer to the confectioner's metal funnel, and it survives, essentially unchanged, as the parchment cone.