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 ↓
Royal Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the icing
Place the egg whites in a round-bottomed basin.
Gradually add powdered sugar until the mixture is light and elastic.
Decorate
Use small tin funnel-like tubes for piping flowers and ornamental borders.
Imitate flowers such as roses, pansies, and daisies for decoration.
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 whites
- Provide the protein structure that gives the icing body and lets it hold piped shapes.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens and thickens the egg whites, stiffening the mixture for piping.
The step that matters
Adding the powdered sugar gradually. Sugar added too quickly can leave lumps and an uneven texture, and the icing can become too stiff or too loose. Adding it in stages lets you reach the light, elastic consistency that holds its shape when piped.
“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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