Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Soft White Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Whisk the egg white until just thin, not stiff.
Measure the egg white, then add 5 tablespoons of powdered sugar for each tablespoon of egg white.
Mix until well combined.
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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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg white
- Provides the liquid and body that the sugar dissolves into, and dries to a glossy, firm coating.
- Powdered sugar
- Supplies the sweetness and bulk that thicken the egg white into a spreadable icing.
The step that matters
Whisk the egg white until just thin, not stiff.. Whipping the egg white into stiff foam traps air and makes it hard to mix in the sugar smoothly, so the icing can turn lumpy or dense. Keeping it loose lets the sugar dissolve evenly.
“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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