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
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the sugar and water together until it forms a soft ball when dropped in ice water.
Beat the egg white until stiff.
Pour the boiling syrup over the beaten egg white and stir until it thickens.
Add your desired flavoring.
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
- Granulated sugar
- Dissolves into the syrup that sets and sweetens the icing.
- Egg white
- Whipped to foam, it traps air and gives the icing its light, airy structure.
The step that matters
Boil the sugar syrup to soft ball stage. Sugar syrup boiled to the soft ball stage has the right concentration to set into a smooth icing when it cools. Too little boiling leaves the icing runny, while overboiling makes it hard and grainy.
“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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