CAKE ICING RECIPES

Grandma's Favorite Cake Frosting Recipes

These vintage recipes for cake icing are taken from Mom's old recipe scrapbooks, circa 1929. Mom often used these easy cake frosting recipes to decorate cakes for birthdays and everyday use.

Seven Minute Icing Recipe

1 egg white, 3/4 cups white sugar, 1 tablespoon corn syrup, 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar, 3 tablespoons water, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Combine all ingredients, except flavoring, in top of double boiler and beat; place over rapidly boiling water and beat 7 minutes or until frosting is fluffy and will hold shape; remove from stove, add flavor and beat 1 minute longer; spread immediately.

Easy Vanilla Icing Recipe

3 tablespoons butter, 1-1/2 cups icing sugar, 1-1/2 tablespoons milk, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla; beat. [Add enough confectioner's sugar to make of right consistency to spread.]

Vanilla Butter Cream Icing Recipe

1/4 cup butter, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons vanilla, 3 cups icing sugar, 1/4 cup milk. Combine all ingredients and mix.

Butterscotch Icing Recipe

In a saucepan combine 3 tablespoons butter, 3 tablespoons milk, 1/2 cup dark brown sugar. Heat till dissolved, beat in 1-2/3 cups icing sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla; beat till creamy.

Aunt Babette's Icing Recipes

These old-fashioned recipes for icing 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.

Boiled Icing Recipe

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.

Recipe For Almond Icing (Marzipan Frosting Recipe)

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.

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.

Plain White Icing Recipe

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.

Pink Icing

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.

Yellow Icing

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.

Chocolate Icing

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.

Chocolate Icing Recipe, Without Eggs

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.

Chocolate Icing, Unboiled

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.

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.

Lemon Peel Flavoring For Use With Cake Icing Recipes

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.

Unboiled Icing

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.

Chocolate Icing Recipe

Prepare the above unboiled icing, add as much grated chocolate as you desire and flavor with vanilla.

Yellow or Golden Icing

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.

Coconut Icing

Mix coconut with the unboiled icing. If you desire to spread it between the cakes, scatter more coconut over and between the layers.

Nut Icing

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.

Maple Sugar Icing

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.

Caramel Icing Recipe

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.