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Seven Minute Icing

A quick icing made from sugar, water, Karo syrup, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Seven Minute Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the icing

  1. Combine sugar, water, and Karo syrup in a double boiler over boiling water.

  2. Beat the mixture for seven minutes while it cooks.

  3. Continue to beat while cooling.

Add flavorings

  1. For added flavor, mix in chopped nuts and chopped dates.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Syrup + eggtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,995 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the sweet base that dissolves into the syrup and sets into the icing's body.
Egg whites
Trap air when beaten, building a light, foamy structure.
Light karo syrup
Helps keep the sugar from crystallizing, giving a smooth, glossy texture.

The step that matters

Beating while the mixture cooks and cools. Beating keeps air moving through the hot syrup and egg whites, so they form a light, stable foam instead of a dense, grainy one. Continuing to beat as it cools lets the icing thicken smoothly.

“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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