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Dessert

Fluffy Caramel Frosting

A frosting made by boiling brown sugar and mixing with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Sugar and egg 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 ↓

Fluffy Caramel Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare plain-boiled frosting using brown sugar instead of white.

  2. After pouring the hot syrup over the egg whites, beat in 2 extra tablespoons of uncooked brown sugar.

  3. Use as a frosting for your desired dessert.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel flavor, and keeps the frosting moist and soft.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup over the egg whites. The hot syrup must be poured in a thin, steady stream while the whites are beating. This partly cooks the egg proteins and sets the foam. Pouring too fast or without beating can deflate the foam or leave cooked lumps.

“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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