Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
White Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Stir the sugar and water in a saucepan until it begins to boil.
Do not touch the mixture as it will grain.
Add the cream of tartar to the sugar before pouring in the water.
Boil until the mixture forms threads when dripped from a spoon.
Finish the icing
Beat the hot syrup into the stiffly beaten egg whites.
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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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
- Sugar
- Dissolves into a syrup that sets into a sweet, glossy coating as it cools.
- Cream of tartar
- Its mild acidity helps stabilize the egg white foam so it holds its volume.
The step that matters
Boil the syrup without stirring. Stirring or disturbing the boiling sugar syrup can encourage sugar crystals to form, which makes the finished icing grainy instead of smooth.
“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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