Recipe For Making Chocolate Icing For Cakes

1 1/2 cups of sugar. 2 ounces of cocoa or chocolate. 1/2 cup of boiling water. The whites of two eggs. 1/2 teaspoonful of vanilla extract.

Boil the first two ingredients to the thread degree, 238° Fahr., on the sugar thermometer, beat in the melted chocolate or cocoa and pour in a fine stream on to the whites of eggs, beaten until dry; beat until cool, add the vanilla and spread upon the cake. This is a particularly good icing to use with English walnuts, or pecan nuts. Almonds make a more showy decoration, but they taste better with chocolate, if combined with preserved fruit as cherries. This icing does not thicken as quickly as the ordinary boiled frosting and will run from the cake somewhat; with a silver knife return to the cake, even several times, when it will adhere. It has a dead rather than a glossy surface and will keep moist a week or ten days. If an ice with a glossy surface that stiffens at once be preferred, return the icing to the fire, after the addition of the chocolate, and boil a second time to the thread stage then finish as before.