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Dessert

Brown Sugae Frosting

A frosting made from muscovado sugar, cream or milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Brown Sugae Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the sugar, cream or milk, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture until it hardens in cold water.

  3. Beat the mixture until it cools enough to spread.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 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

Muscovado sugar
Provides sweetness and a deep molasses flavour, and its boiled syrup sets into the frosting's firm body.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, dissolving the sugar and softening the boiled mixture into a spreadable texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, tender texture and a rich mouthfeel to the frosting.

The step that matters

Boil until it hardens in cold water. Sugar syrup sets as its temperature rises and water evaporates. Pulling it off the heat too early leaves a runny frosting, while boiling too long makes it brittle and grainy. The cold-water test gauges how far the sugar has concentrated.

“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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