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Maple Cream Frosting
Break into small pieces one pound of fresh maple sugar and put into saucepan with one cup of cream. Stir until sugar is thoroughly dissolved. Then boil without stirring until a soft ball can be shaped between the fingers when tested in cold water. Remove from the fire and beat until of the right consistency to spread.
A two-ingredient boiled frosting that lives or dies on the sugar stage and on when you stop beating. Read the timing notes before you start, because the working window at the end is short.
- Soft-ball means 234-240FUse a candy thermometer and pull the pan at about 236F. The cold-water test in the original works, but a thermometer removes the guesswork, and overshooting the stage will give a stiffer, more crumbly frosting.
- Maple sugarHard cakes of maple sugar are still sold, mostly from Vermont, Quebec and upstate New York, but they are not a supermarket staple. Granulated maple sugar can be used in its place; a pound is somewhere in the region of 2 1/2 to 3 cups depending on grind. Maple syrup is a poor swap here, as its water content changes the boil.
- Do not stir after it boilsThis is the hinge. Stirring a boiling sugar syrup seeds crystals and gives a grainy frosting. Dissolve the sugar completely over moderate heat first, then leave the spoon out of the pan entirely. Washing the pan sides down with a wet pastry brush helps.
- Cream, not milkGravity-skimmed cream of the period was generally thinner than modern heavy cream, so light cream or half-and-half is probably closer to what was intended.
- Cool before beatingThe recipe does not say how long to wait after removing the pan, but the frosting is smoother if the syrup cools to about 110F undisturbed first. Beating while hot produces coarse crystals.
- The spreading window is shortOnce it thickens and loses its gloss it will set fast. Have the cake ready and work quickly. If it hardens in the bowl, a spoonful of hot cream beaten in will loosen it.
- YieldAbout two cups, enough to fill and cover an 8- or 9-inch two-layer cake.
Maple sugar was for a long time the cheaper sweetener across the northeastern United States and eastern Canada, where sap was boiled down past the syrup stage and cast into cakes that kept through the year without refrigeration. Cheap refined cane sugar gradually displaced it in American kitchens over the course of the nineteenth century, and by the time The Butterick Cook Book appeared in 1911 maple had shifted from everyday sweetener to flavoring han the the economy han the the economity han the the economy han the the economy — something you bought for the taste rather than the economy. This frosting is essentially a fudge, made by the same boil-and-beat method as penuche and other fondant-based icings; the only difference is that the sugar carries its own flavor, so no extract or chocolate is called for. Butterick, better known for dress patterns, published the book as part of a broad line of household guides aimed at the middle-class woman running a home without much hired help.