Name: Icing Cakes
Ingredients: fine powdered sugar; water; flavoring (optional); fruit juices or syrup (optional); wine (optional); confectionery coloring (optional)

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Icing Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Mix fine powdered sugar with enough water to create a spreadable consistency.
Add flavoring if desired and mix well.
Spread the icing over the surface of the cake.
For a colored icing, incorporate confectionery coloring.
For a fruit-flavored icing, substitute water with fruit juices or syrup.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Syrup + winetop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together381 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9,581 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).