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Dessert

Boiled Frosting — No. 1

A frosting made by boiling sugar syrup and folding it into beaten egg whites with vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Boiled Frosting — No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 238°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar and water. Cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves.

  2. Increase heat and boil without stirring until it reaches the soft ball stage (238°F or 114°C).

Whip and finish

  1. While syrup is boiling, beat egg whites and cream of tartar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Once syrup is ready, pour it slowly into the beaten egg whites while mixing continuously.

  3. Add vanilla extract and continue beating until frosting is thick and glossy.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
Granulated sugar
Dissolved and boiled into a syrup that sets into a sweet, smooth frosting.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, helping them whip to a stable, stiff foam.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must be at soft ball stage and poured slowly while beating continuously. Pouring too fast or stopping to mix can deflate the foam or cook the whites unevenly, leaving a runny or grainy frosting.

“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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