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Dessert

Butter Icing

A sweet icing made from butter, icing sugar, egg whites or whipped cream, and optional flavorings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Butter Icing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter until light.

  2. Gradually add the icing sugar and mix well.

  3. Incorporate the egg whites or whipped cream until smooth.

  4. Add your chosen flavoring and mix to combine.

  5. For chocolate cream icing, add powdered cocoa and vanilla flavoring.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Rum + chocolatetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Cocoa + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed until light, it traps air and gives the icing a smooth, rich body.
Icing sugar
Dissolves into the fat to provide sweetness and bulk for a spreadable icing.
Egg whites or whipped cream
Adds air and moisture, lightening the texture and making the icing smooth.
Powdered cocoa
Adds chocolate flavor and color to the chocolate cream variation.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter until light. Beating softened butter until light traps air in the fat, which gives the icing its lightness. Under-creamed butter leaves a dense, grainy icing, while the sugar must be added gradually so it blends in without the mixture becoming runny.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, rum, chocolate, cream. 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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