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Baking

Fillings for Cakes

Two cake fillings: a soft white icing with coconut, walnuts, raisins and grapes, and a boiled sugar icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fillings for Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Put the sugar and water on to boil.

  2. Let the syrup cook without stirring until a drop dropped from the spoon flies in the air.

Beat the whites

  1. Beat the whites of 3 eggs very light.

Combine and finish

  1. Take the syrup off the heat and pour it slowly on to the beaten whites, beating all the time it is being poured.

  2. Season with vanilla and continue beating until the icing is thick enough not to run when put between the layers of cake.

  3. Add the coconut, walnuts, raisins and grapes to the well beaten whites of 3 eggs to which 1 cup of sugar has been added.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

189Calories
7 gProtein
6 gFat
29 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + grapetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

  3. Grape + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites form the foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Dissolved into a boiled syrup, it sets the icing and adds sweetness.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so it can be boiled into a syrup.

The step that matters

Pouring the syrup into the whites. Pour the hot syrup slowly while beating constantly. Pouring too fast can deflate the foam and cook the egg unevenly, so the icing thickens poorly.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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