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Marshmallow Cream Frosting
Put three-fourths cup of sugar and one-fourth cup of milk into a saucepan and bring slowly to the boiling point. Boil for about five minutes. Break into pieces one-fourth pound fresh marshmallows and place in a double boiler with two tablespoons of hot water and one-half teaspoon of vanilla. Stir until smooth, then add the milk and sugar syrup gradually, stirring constantly. Beat until cool, when it will be ready to spread.
A simple two-part frosting: a short milk-and-sugar syrup folded into melted marshmallows. The whole outcome hangs on how far the syrup is cooked and how long you beat it afterward.
- The hinge: beat it coolWarm, this mixture is a pourable glaze; beaten until it drops to room temperature it thickens into a spreadable cream. Stop beating too early and it will run off the cake; keep going and it stiffens quickly, so have the cake ready.
- Five minutes of boilingThree-quarters cup sugar with a quarter cup milk boiled about five minutes will reduce to a thickened syrup, possibly somewhere in the soft-ball range, but the recipe names no stage and no temperature, and pan width and heat change how fast it reduces, so five minutes is a rough guide rather than a fixed result.
- Milk syrup scorchesSugar and milk together catch on the bottom of the pan far faster than sugar and water. Use a heavy saucepan, keep the heat moderate, and stir at the start until the sugar dissolves.
- A quarter pound of marshmallowsThat is 4 oz: about 16 standard modern marshmallows, or roughly 2 cups of the miniature kind, which need no cutting. Modern marshmallows are corn-syrup-and-gelatin confections and may not behave exactly like the commercial marshmallows of 1911, which were made with gelatin or gum arabic; allow extra time over the water if they are slow to melt down smooth.
- "Fresh" mattersStale marshmallows have dried at the surface and melt into stringy lumps rather than a smooth paste. Open a new bag.
- Double boilerKeep the water below a simmer and do not let it touch the upper pan. Direct heat will make the melted marshmallow tighten and turn grainy.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; the quantities suggest roughly enough to fill and top a single 8- or 9-inch two-layer cake. It is not a frosting that holds piped detail; spread it with a warm palette knife.
- StorageIt crusts over within a few hours and cuts cleanly the same day, but stiffens in the refrigerator. Frost on the day you plan to serve.
Marshmallow confections began as a medicinal paste made from the mucilaginous root of the marsh mallow plant, Althaea officinalis; by the late nineteenth century the root had largely been replaced commercially by gelatin and gum arabic, and factory-made marshmallows became widely available in American groceries. The Butterick Cook Book (1911) sits in the period when that industrial sweet was increasingly used as a cooking ingredient rather than only as a candy eaten out of hand, and frostings, fudges and salads built on it appear in home-economics cookbooks and manufacturers' pamphlets of these years. Butterick, better known for dress patterns, aimed its cookery at much the same middle-class housekeeper it sold patterns to, which suits the appeal here: a glossy frosting from three cheap staples and no egg whites to whip by hand.