Honey Icing

This honey icing is a cooked frosting that falls somewhere between a seven-minute icing and marshmallow fluff. A hot sugar-honey syrup gets poured in a thin stream over stiffly beaten egg whites while you beat constantly, creating a billowy, glossy frosting with genuine honey flavor.

The soft ball stage (around 235-240°F / 113-116°C if you’re using a candy thermometer) is the target for the sugar-honey syrup. At that temperature, the sugar is hot enough to cook the egg whites as it’s poured in, which stabilizes the frosting and gives it structure. Undershoot and the icing stays soupy. Overshoot and it turns grainy.

Marshmallows stirred into the hot syrup melt completely and add a stretchy, smooth quality to the finished frosting. They also help it hold its shape when swirled onto a cake rather than slowly deflating.

Pro Tips

• Beat the egg white to stiff peaks before the syrup is ready. You need it waiting, not the other way around.
• Pour the hot syrup in a thin, steady stream along the side of the bowl, not directly onto the beaters. Direct contact flings hot syrup everywhere and cools it too fast.
• Keep beating until the icing is thick, glossy, and holds soft peaks. This can take 5 to 7 minutes after adding the syrup.
• Use immediately. This frosting sets as it cools and becomes difficult to spread if you wait too long.

Variations

• Use a dark, robust honey like buckwheat for a more intensely flavored icing.
• Add a drop of vanilla extract while beating for a honey-vanilla frosting.
• Swirl the frosted cake with a kitchen torch for toasted marshmallow peaks.