Name: Hickory Nut Frosting
Ingredients: 1 or 2 eggs; 1 teacup (about 1 cup) sugar per egg; Hickory nut meats, finely ground

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 ↓

Hickory Nut Frosting

Ingredients

1 or 2 eggs
1 teacup (about 1 cup) sugar per egg
Hickory nut meats, finely ground

Directions

Prepare

Preheat the oven if baking a cake.
Grind or pound the hickory nut meats very finely.

Make and finish the frosting

For each egg, add one cup of sugar.
Sprinkle the ground nuts thickly on top of the cake.
Spread the frosting evenly over the cake.

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.

Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Sugar + meattop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,866 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the sugar into a frosting that sets and holds its shape.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and body to the frosting.
Hickory nut meats: Add a crunchy, nutty texture and flavor on top of the cake.

“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.