Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Plain Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the icing
In a bowl, combine powdered sugar, lemon juice, and boiling water.
Beat the mixture hard until it is smooth and semi-transparent.
Finish the cake
Spread the icing on the cake as soon as it is taken from the oven.
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.
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Powdered sugar
- Provides sweetness and the bulk that forms the icing.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the sugar.
- Boiling water
- Dissolves the sugar so the icing becomes smooth and spreadable.
The step that matters
Beat the mixture hard until smooth. Thorough beating dissolves the sugar fully and makes the icing smooth and semi-transparent. Undissolved sugar grains leave the icing gritty and dull, so it should be beaten until no grains remain.
“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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