Why it works: Sugar and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Icing for Cake
Ingredients
Directions
In a bowl, combine the powdered sugar and grated orange rind.
Add the boiling water and mix well.
Gradually add orange juice until the mixture is moistened to your desired consistency.
Use immediately to ice your cake.
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 + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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 sweet body and smooth, spreadable structure of the icing.
- Orange juice
- Moistens the sugar to bring the icing to a spreadable consistency and adds acidity.
- Boiling water
- Dissolves part of the sugar to help the icing blend smoothly.
The step that matters
Gradually add orange juice. Powdered sugar absorbs liquid unevenly, so adding juice a little at a time lets you stop at a spreadable consistency. Adding it all at once can make the icing too thin and runny.
“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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