Icing with Syrup for Cakes Flavored with Vanilla, Orange, Lemon or Fruit Juices

Put one pint of water and a pound of sugar in a saucepan, adding half a vanilla bean or else some orange or lemon peel; stand it on the fire, let boil up a few times to obtain a syrup, then remove the saucepan from the range immediately, suppress the vanilla or peels and incorporate sufficient sugar to form a very smooth flowing paste.

For Uncooked Fruit Juice Icing.—Prepare it with strawberry, raspberry, currant or pineapple juice. Simply crush the ripe, fresh fruits, pour them on a sieve to collect all the liquid. Put some icing sugar in a vessel, dissolve it with a little thirty-degree syrup, and the fruit juice, incorporating the liquid slowly; just before using this icing warm it in an untinned copper vessel, stirring it during the operation. The icing sugars are colored according to taste and are used for icing Genoeses, pouring it over or else dipping in all kinds of small cakes, such as eclairs, etc.