Home › Frostings › Cream Frosting
Cream Frosting
Four tablespoonfuls of cream; stir in pulverized sugar until thick enough to spread nicely.
A two-ingredient uncooked frosting of the kind that filled the back pages of turn-of-the-century books, where the cook was trusted to judge thickness by eye. The only real decisions are the sugar and the amount.
- Pulverized sugarThis is broadly what we now call confectioners' (icing) sugar, though period pulverized sugar was ground from loaf sugar and tended to be coarser than modern 10X. Modern boxed versions contain a little cornstarch (up to about 3 percent), which may thicken slightly more than the period product.
- How much sugarExpect somewhere in the region of two to three cups of sifted confectioners' sugar to bring four tablespoons of cream to a spreading consistency. Add it in half-cup stages and judge by eye, as the recipe intends; the last additions are where it turns from glaze to frosting.
- The creamHeavy or whipping cream at around 36 percent fat gives the best body. Half-and-half or light cream will work but needs more sugar and sets softer.
- Sift firstConfectioners' sugar compacts in the box and will leave hard specks that no amount of stirring dissolves. Sift it, or press it through a sieve as you go.
- YieldEnough to cover the top and sides of one 8-inch layer, or the top of a 9x13 sheet cake. Double it for a filled two-layer cake.
- Consistency and timingIt stiffens noticeably as it stands, so mix it just before use. If it tightens too far, a teaspoon of cream brings it back.
- StorageBecause the cream is never cooked, a frosted cake should be kept refrigerated and eaten within two or three days rather than left under a cloth on the sideboard as the period intended.
- FlavoringThe original is deliberately plain. A half teaspoon of vanilla, a pinch of salt, or a spoonful of strong coffee or cocoa are all in keeping with period practice, though dry additions such as cocoa will stiffen the mixture a little.
Uncooked frostings like this one belong to a distinct family in nineteenth-century American baking, separate from the boiled icings that dominated fancier work. A boiled icing meant a sugar syrup taken to a thread and beaten into egg white, which demanded a thermometer or a practiced hand; a cream frosting demanded neither, and could be made in the minutes between taking a cake from the oven and putting it on the table. Its rise depended on cheap, reliably fine sugar: pulverized or powdered sugar became more widely available to American households through the second half of the nineteenth century as refining improved, and recipe books of the period increasingly assume the cook has some to hand. The brevity of the entry is itself informative: no quantities are given because the technique of adding sugar until the mixture behaves correctly was assumed knowledge rather than something to be measured.