3 egg whites
1 tablespoon lemon juice
about 1 cup [regular] sugar*

* The amount of sugar depends on one's taste, one can add more or less of it [The icing can even be made with 1/4 cup sugar, but then it is obviously not as sweet as it would be with 1 cup.] Also, this icing looks more like a cream topping than a typical cake icing or frosting. To get a frosting with the above ingredients one would have to substitute regular table sugar with icing sugar. Also one would have to triple the amount of icing sugar. Italian pastry shops, I believe, use "icing sugar" and possibly use about 2 cups icing sugar for every egg white used to get the required look. The above recipe is for an old-fashioned style "cream-like" cake topping, and not for a frosting.

Beat egg whites till they are nearly stiff.

Add lemon juice and continue beating.

Add sugar slowly and continue beating the egg whites until they are very stiff.

Decorate the cake with the icing.

Serve within the hour (though the icing will keep for a few hours if the cake is kept in the fridge).

According to my aunt this is how icing used to be made when she was growing up in Molise in the 1930s. It was generally used to decorate "pane di spagne." Surprisingly this cake icing is very easy to do and has a pleasant flavour. Unfortunately the egg whites are NOT cooked so I would hesitate to serve it to guests (Wouldn't want them to suffer from food poisoning!). Also, while the icing is easy to decorate a cake with and it does stay stiff for about three hours (It starts to slowly sink after that, though never completely), the problem is that some of the icing seeps into the cake, making the top layer a bit mushy. Nonetheless, if one eats the cake with this icing soon after it is made, the cake not only looks great, it also tastes great as well. Photo: Mary Melfi.

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