Birthday Pleasure: Delicious Pink Frosting

                Step back in time…way, way back to the era of a little girl’s birthday. I was transported there this morning as I visited with a Rector neighbor.  She had baked her grandchildren’s favorite cake to take to the family dinner tonight, and was busy whipping up the frosting.  As I watched and we conversed, I noted her steps and she shared that the recipe was one she’d always had within her family. When I saw the beater raised from the mixing bowl, I knew it was my family’s recipe also.  I had never made the icing myself, and I only recall one specific time when Mother, herself, made it.  For my birthday – perhaps age 3 – because I recall that we were in the kitchen of our little house on Crestwood.
                     

The cake did not matter as much as the frosting.  Our family’s basic recipe involved simple syrup and 4 egg whites plus 1 T sugar beaten into peaks by an experienced hand with a faultless rhythm.  The red handled “egg-beater” was used with skill to create stiff peaks within a Wesson Oil gray crock boasting a blue band and blue lettering.  Once the simple syrup (1 cup water, 1 cup sugar cooked to the string stage) was added in, a stand mixer could be used to create the fluffy, stiff-peaked frosting.  Add a teeny-tiny dot of red food coloring, and voila’!  Pink Icing!  

                      Want to lick the beaters?