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Dessert

Boiled Frosting

A frosting made by boiling sugar and water, then folding into beaten egg whites, optionally flavored with almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Boiled Frosting

Why it works: Sugar and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Boiled Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Combine the sugar and hot water in a saucepan.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil briskly for 5 minutes until it ropes from the spoon.

  2. Pour the hot sugar mixture over the beaten egg whites and stir until cool.

  3. If desired, add the blanched and pounded almonds for extra flavor.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

  3. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites whip into a stable foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
Granulated sugar
Boiled into a syrup, it sets the frosting and provides its sweetness.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar syrup. The syrup must boil long enough to reach the rope stage, where enough water has evaporated for the frosting to set. Too little boiling leaves it runny; too much makes it hard and brittle.

Swap the almond

The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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