Zefir: Simple gelatine sugar icing

This icing is very cheap and easy to make. It is extremely white, easy to color and holds the form perfectly.
No idea where this recipe comes from thou. Long time ago when I was a kid, my sister got it from somebody. We used to make "marshmallows " from this icing quite often. We called it “zefir” what in my mother tongue means “soft marshmallows”. Indeed, it has some similarities with it until it dries out and becomes hard as rock.
Ingredients: 500 gr sugar, 125 ml water, 1 sachet of gelatin powder (15 gr), lemon juice to taste and a tiny bit of baking soda.
Directions:
1. Soak gelatine in 125 ml cold water for 5 min.
2. Add water with gelatine to sugar and hit it up on middle flame until it starts boiling. The sugar and gelatine should be dissolved at this point. Take the pan with sugar-gelatine mixture away from the stove and cool it down till 60•C approximately.
3. Add lemon juice to taste and start whisking the icing. Add baking soda (it gives this icing it beautiful white color).
4. Whisk it until the mixture becomes stiffer and glossy. It also should increase in volume.
Should be used when it’s still lukewarm. While decorating keep whisking the rest of the mixture on slow speed (it will prevent icing from stiffening).
If the icing becomes too stiff just warm it up in a microwave for a few seconds.
Hope it might be handy for Cakesdecor community :) Here I added some pictures of Christmas trees made from this icing