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Dessert

Ornamental Frosting

A light, stiff frosting made with confectioner's sugar, eggs, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Ornamental Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs with 2 tablespoons of confectioner's sugar until thick.

  2. Gradually add more confectioner's sugar and lemon juice, continuing to beat.

  3. Add sugar by spoonfuls until the mixture is stiff enough to spread.

  4. Check consistency by inserting a knife; it should make a clean cut.

Decorate

  1. Use a pastry bag and tube to apply the frosting.

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.

  1. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Whipped with sugar, they form a foam that gives the frosting its light body.
Confectioner's sugar
Dissolves into the egg mixture, sweetening it and stiffening it into a spreadable texture.
Lemon juice
Adds a bright acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar.

The step that matters

Check consistency by inserting a knife; it should make a clean cut.. Sugar stiffens the mixture as it is added. Too little leaves the frosting runny and unable to hold a shape, while too much makes it dry and brittle. Checking before piping keeps the texture right for the tube.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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