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Dessert

Plain Icing, Glace

A light, frothy icing made from egg whites, powdered sugar, lemon juice, and optional rose, orange, or lemon essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and rose are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,174 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Plain Icing, Glace

Ingredients

Directions

Make the icing

  1. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Gradually sift in the powdered sugar while beating continuously.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of your chosen essence.

  4. Beat until the mixture is very light and almost stands alone.

Apply the icing

  1. Use a knife to spread a thin coat of icing over the cake, dipping the knife in lemon juice for smoothness.

  2. Allow the icing to harden in the oven or sun before adding another coat.

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. Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

  5. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Foam traps air and gives the icing its light, airy body as it is beaten.
White powdered sugar
Provides sweetness and, as it dissolves into the foam, the bulk that lets the icing set firm.
Lemon juice
Adds a bright tartness that balances the sugar, and its acidity helps the knife glide smoothly over the cake.
Essence of rose, orange, or lemon
Adds aroma and flavor to the icing.

The step that matters

Beating until very light and almost standing alone. Beating the sugar into the egg white foam incorporates air and dissolves the sugar. If the icing is under-beaten it stays runny and dull and will not set firm on the cake, so keep beating until it holds its shape.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Raisinfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, rose. 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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