Vintage Cake Icing Recipes 1889 - 1929

Directions:

1. Boiled Frosting Recipe
2. To one pound of finest pulverized sugar add three wineglassfuls of clear water. Let it stand until it dissolves; then boil it until it is perfectly clear and threads from the spoon. Beat well the whites of four eggs. Pour the sugar into the dish with the eggs, but do not mix them until the syrup is lukewarm; then beat all well together for one-half hour.
3. Season to your taste with vanilla, rose water, or lemon juice. The first coating may be put on the cake as soon as it is well mixed. Rub the cake with a little flour before you apply the icing. While the first coat is drying continue to beat the remainder; you will not have to wait long if the cake is set in a warm place near the fire. This is said to be a most excellent recipe for icing.
4. Frosting Recipe, Without Eggs
5. An excellent frosting may be made without eggs or gelatin, which will keep longer and cut more easily, causing no breakage or crumbling and withal is very economical.
6. Take one cup of granulated sugar; dampen it with one-fourth of a cup of milk, or five tablespoonfuls; place it on the fire in a suitable dish and stir it until it boils; then let it boil for five minutes without stirring; remove it from the fire and set the dish in another of cold water; add flavoring. While it is cooling, stir or beat it constantly and it will become a thick, creamy frosting.
7. Gelatin Frosting
8. Soak one teaspoonful of gelatin in one tablespoonful of cold water half an hour, dissolve in two tablespoonfuls of hot water; add one cup of powdered sugar and stir until smooth.
9. Golden Frosting
10. A very delicious and handsome frosting can be made by using the yolks of eggs instead of the whites. Proceed exactly as for ordinary frosting. It will harden just as nicely as that does. This is particularly good for orange cake, harmonizing with the color of the cake in a way to please
11. Icing Recipes
12. These old-fashioned cake icing recipes are taken from the book Aunt Babette's Cook Book, Foreign and Domestic Receipts for the Household by Aunt Babette, published by Bloch Publishing and Printing Company, Chicago, in 1889.
13. Boiled Icing Recipe
14. Take one cup of sugar to the beaten white of one egg. Put the sugar on to boil with two tablespoonfuls of water. When this has boiled clear pour on the beaten white of the egg, stirring constantly until cold. Flavor with rose water and vanilla mixed.
15. Almond Icing (Marzipan Icing Recipe)
16. Take the whites of two eggs and half a pound of sweet almonds, with a few bitter, mixed, which should be blanched, dried and grated, or pounded to a paste. Beat the whites of the eggs, add half a pound of confectioner's sugar, a handful at a time, until all is used up, and then add the almonds and a few spoonfuls of rose water. Spread between or on top of cake. Put on thick, and when nearly dry cover with a plain icing.
17. If the cakes are well dredged with a little flour after baking, and then carefully wiped before the icing is put on, it will not run, and can be spread more smoothly. Put the frosting in the center of the cake, dip a knife in cold water and spread from the center toward the edge.
18. Plain White Icing Recipe
19. Beat up the white of an egg with one-quarter of a pound of pulverized sugar until thick; half a pound for two whites, and so on. Set in a very warm place to dry.
20. Pink Icing
21. This icing is made as above, or like boiled icing, using pink confectioner's sugar or color with cochineal [food coloring] or prepared fruit coloring, which you may procure at any first-class grocery.
22. Yellow Icing
23. Grate the peel of one or more oranges; put the peel in a fine batiste [fabric] rag; tie it up and boil in a few spoonfuls of water. Squeeze it to extract the color, and boil with as much sugar as you want for icing - say two whites of eggs, juice of one orange and two cups of sugar. You may use the orange juice in place of the water.
24. Chocolate Icing
25. Make a stiff icing by beating the whites of four eggs, and adding gradually one pound of sifted powdered sugar. Add gradually one-third of a cake of bitter chocolate, which you have previously melted in a tin cup on the back of the stove. Mix with icing and flavor with vanilla. This quantity is enough to ice the layers and top of a large cake.
26. Chocolate Icing Recipe, Without Eggs
27. Boil chocolate with very little water and sugar until thick. It must harden on the spoon when cool. Flavor with vanilla and spread. Set in a very warm place to harden.
28. Chocolate Icing, Unboiled
29. Beat the whites of three eggs and one and one-half cups of pulverized sugar, added gradually while beating. Beat until very thick, then add four heaping tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate and two teaspoonfuls of vanilla.
30. Frosting for a strawberry cake should not be set in the oven, and it should not be frosted longer than half an hour before serving, and then set in the ice chest immediately. Try this and you will never do otherwise. Tastes like whipped cream. You may flavor with vanilla or strawberry juice.
31. Lemon Peel Flavoring For Use With Cake Icing Recipes
32. Keep a wide-mouthed bottle of brandy in which to throw lemon peel. Often, you will have use for the juice of lemons only. Then it will be economical to put the lemon peel in the bottle to use for flavoring. A teaspoonful of this is sufficient for the largest cake.
33. Unboiled Icing
34. Take the white of one egg, and add to it [approximately] the same quantity of water. Stir into this as much confectioner's sugar to make it of the right consistency to spread upon the cake. Flavor with any flavoring desired. You may color it pink as you would boiled frosting by adding fruit coloring.
35. Chocolate Icing Recipe
36. Prepare the above unboiled icing, add as much grated chocolate as you desire and flavor with vanilla.
37. Yellow or Golden Icing
38. Is made just as you would the white unboiled icing, substituting the yolk of the egg instead of the white, flavor with orange juice, and if you wish a deeper yellow, grate the orange peel into the juice of the orange, and strain through a fine piece of cheesecloth before adding to the yellow icing.
39. Coconut Icing
40. Mix coconut with the unboiled icing. If you desire to spread it between the cakes, scatter more coconut over and between the layers.
41. Nut Icing
42. Mix any quantity of finely chopped nuts into any quantity of cream icing (unboiled) as in the foregoing receipts. Ice the top of cake with plain icing, and lay the halves of walnuts on top.
43. Maple Sugar Icing
44. Boil two cupfuls of maple sugar, with half a cupful of boiling water until it threads from the spoon. Pour it upon the beaten whites of two eggs and beat until cold. Spread between and on top of cake. A pretty effect is made by sprinkling desiccated coconut on top of cake.
45. Caramel Icing Recipe
46. Two cupfuls of granulated sugar, a piece of best butter the size of an egg, and one scant cupful of sweet milk. Boil very briskly for ten minutes, being careful not to burn. Flavor with vanilla. Stir until cold.