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Dessert

Directions for Frosting

A frosting made from beaten egg whites and powdered sugar, flavored with optional rose, pineapple, almond, lemon, or vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Directions for Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the frosting

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add powdered sugar while beating continuously.

  3. Use about 10 heaping teaspoons of powdered sugar for each egg white, adjusting for egg size.

  4. Add your choice of flavoring.

  5. If using lemon juice, add more sugar to balance the liquid.

Frost the cake

  1. If the cake is rough or brown, dust with flour and remove loose particles with a cloth.

  2. Frost the cake while it is still warm.

  3. Pour the frosting around the center of the cake and smooth it with a knife.

  4. If the frosting is stiff, dip the knife in cold water.

Serve

  1. Once the frosting is almost cold, slice the cake with a knife.

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

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

  3. Egg + rosetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,840 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 frosting its light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whipped whites to sweeten and firm the frosting as it sets.
Flavoring
Adds aroma and taste to the frosting without changing its structure.
Cornstarch
Helps stabilize the frosting and keep it from weeping or becoming runny.

The step that matters

Adding the powdered sugar. Sugar must be added gradually while beating, so the whites keep their foam structure. Adding it all at once can deflate the foam and leave the frosting dense or 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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