Why it works: Sugar and egg 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 ↓
Boiled Icing, No. 2
Ingredients
Directions
Combine sugar and water in a saucepan.
Boil on low heat until the mixture is waxy or stringy.
Remove from heat and add the egg whites, mixing well.
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 + eggtop 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
- Sugar
- Forms a syrup that, once cooked, sets into a glossy, sweet icing structure.
- Egg whites
- Whip into the hot syrup to add foam, body and a light, fluffy texture.
The step that matters
Boiling the sugar syrup to the waxy or stringy stage. Cooking sugar syrup to the right concentration determines the icing's set. Undercooked syrup stays runny, while overcooked syrup turns hard and grainy as it cools, so the stage must be judged carefully.
“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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