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Dessert

Gelatine Icing

A sweet, foamy icing made from gelatin, sugar, glucose, albumen, and powdered sugar, flavored with vanilla, strawberry, burnt sugar, or chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and strawberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,385 recipes. Both carry p-vinylguaiacol, which smells spicy, fruity. The science ↓

Gelatine Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in 2 gallons of water overnight.

  2. Soak the Russian albumen in 1 gallon of water for 10-15 hours.

Make the icing

  1. In a large pot, mix 40 pounds of sugar and 25 pounds of glucose with 1.5 gallons of water and cook to 240°F (115°C).

  2. Turn off the heat and stir in the soaked gelatine until well mixed.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a marshmallow beater and beat for 30 minutes until light and foamy.

  4. In the beater, add the soaked albumen and 20 pounds of powdered sugar, then beat well.

  5. Gradually add the remaining 35 pounds of powdered sugar while beating.

  6. Combine the marshmallow mixture with the albumen mixture and add ½ ounce of powdered tartaric acid; mix well.

Use

  1. Use the icing for dipping and flavor as desired.

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. Vanilla + strawberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,385 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-vinylguaiacol (spicy, fruity).

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Strawberry + chocolatetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together447 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Golden flake gelatine
Provides elastic structure that gives the icing body and holds its airy foam.
Sugar
Sweetens and, cooked with glucose, forms a syrup that sets the icing's texture.
Glucose
Interferes with sugar crystallization, keeping the icing smooth and glossy rather than grainy.
Russian albumen
Egg-based protein that whips into a stable foam, adding lightness and volume.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and bulk, stiffening the whipped mixture into a firm icing.
Powdered tartaric acid
Adds acidity that balances sweetness and helps stabilize the foam.

The step that matters

Beating the marshmallow mixture before adding the albumen. Beating until light and foamy traps air that gelatine helps hold; underbeaten mixture stays dense and won't reach a stable, fluffy icing texture.

Swap the strawberry

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Strawberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla, chocolate. 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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