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Dessert

Frosting

A stiff frosting made from egg white, sugar, and corn starch, flavored as desired.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. Break the egg white into a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and beat until very stiff.

  3. Flavor as desired.

  4. Stir in a little corn starch and sugar until it holds its shape.

Finish

  1. Spread quickly over the cake, finishing as you go.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

  3. Egg + corntop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 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

Egg white
Whipped into a foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the frosting and stabilizes the whipped foam as it dissolves.
Corn starch
Helps the frosting hold its shape by thickening and stabilizing the foam.

The step that matters

Beating the egg white until very stiff. Egg white foam must be whipped enough to hold air. Under-beaten whites collapse and make the frosting runny, while the sugar must dissolve fully to keep it smooth and stable.

“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.

More frosting recipes

Chocolate 117Boiled 73Cake 60Caramel 43Eggless 36Gelatin 30 See all 14 →

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