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 ↓
Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Break the egg white into a bowl.
Stir in powdered sugar with a spoon until the mixture is stiff enough to spread without running over the sides of the cake.
Use on either cold or warm cake.
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 moisture and structure, helping the powdered sugar set into a spreadable icing.
- Powdered sugar
- Provides sweetness and bulk, thickening the egg white into a stiff, spreadable icing.
The step that matters
Stir in the powdered sugar until stiff. Adding sugar gradually until the icing is stiff enough to spread keeps it from running off the cake. Too little sugar leaves it runny, while too much makes it dense and hard to spread.
“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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