Simple Brown Sugar Icing

My mother was the best! Valedictorian of her 1924 graduating class, she went to Appalachian State Teachers College that summer. In the fall, she was made principal of a three-teacher school at nineteen. She got her Masters Degree from American University in Washington when she was sixty. 

Her book, “Memoirs of Grassy Creek,” published in 1997, contains many references to how foods were grown and prepared in those early days. One of my first food memories was the cake with brown sugar frosting, not the big one but the one she always made especially for me in the four-inch cake pans. 

I don't know where she found those little cake pans and I can't remember if the cake was white or yellow but the frosting was brown sugar, my favorite to this day. 

Simple Brown Sugar Icing

In a saucepan, dissolve 2 cups light brown sugar in 1 cup of milk. Boil without stirring to the softball stage, 238 degrees. Remove from the heat and add 3 tablespoons of butter and a teaspoon of vanilla. Beat until cool enough to frost the cake or just call fudge.