Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Fondant Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine sugar, water, and cream of tartar in a graniteware vessel; stir until the sugar dissolves, but do not stir longer than a minute.
As the mixture boils, wipe away any sugar crystals forming on the edge of the pan with a wet cloth or brush, without touching the boiling sugar.
When large bubbles rise, carefully watch and test the mixture by dipping a skewer into ice water, then into the sugar, and back into the water.
If the sugar can be rolled into a soft ball, it is ready; prepare a marble slab or oiled platter.
Cool and work the icing
Pour the syrup onto the slab and let it cool until it leaves a dent when pressed with a finger.
Work the syrup with a wooden spatula until it becomes white, smooth, and creamy, then knead it with your hands until it has a fine, even texture.
Avoid stirring while too warm to prevent graininess; if a crust forms, remove it completely or reboil the mixture.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the sweet, set body of the icing as the syrup cooks and crystallizes.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidity that helps prevent large sugar crystals from forming, keeping the icing smooth.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can be cooked into a syrup.
The step that matters
Avoid stirring while the syrup is too warm. Stirring hot syrup encourages sugar to recrystallize into large grains, making the icing grainy. Keeping the syrup undisturbed while it cools lets it form fine crystals that give a smooth texture.
“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.
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