Skip to main content
Dessert

Boiled Frosting

A clear, boiled sugar frosting made with powdered sugar, water, egg whites, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Boiled Frosting

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Boiled Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine powdered sugar and clear water in a saucepan.

  2. Let the mixture stand until dissolved.

  3. Boil the mixture until it is perfectly clear and forms threads when dripped from a spoon.

Make the frosting

  1. Beat egg whites until stiff.

  2. Pour lukewarm syrup into the bowl with the egg whites and beat well for 30 minutes.

  3. Season the frosting to taste with vanilla, rose-water, or lemon juice.

Ice the cake

  1. Apply the first coat of frosting to the cake immediately after mixing.

  2. Lightly rub the cake with flour before applying the icing.

  3. Continue to beat the remaining frosting while the first coat dries, especially if the cake is near a warm fire.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

  1. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Powdered sugar
Provides the sweetness and, once cooked into syrup, the body of the frosting.
Egg whites
Whipped until stiff, they form a foam that gives the frosting its light structure.
Clear water
Dissolves the sugar so it can be boiled into a syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup to the thread stage. The syrup's final boiling point sets how firm the frosting will be. Boiled too little, the frosting stays soft and runny; boiled too long, it turns stiff and grainy as it cools.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes