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Dessert

Fondant Icing or Cream Fondant

Fondant icing made from sugar, water, corn syrup, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fondant Icing or Cream Fondant

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 240°F (115°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine 2 cups of sugar, ⅔ cup of water, and ⅓ cup of corn syrup.

  2. Heat over medium until the sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil without stirring.

  3. Use a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature until it reaches 240°F (115°C).

Finish and cool

  1. Remove from heat and let it cool slightly before adding 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

  2. Stir until the mixture thickens and becomes opaque, then pour onto a marble slab to cool completely.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Syrup + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Corn + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Sugar
Forms the sweet, bulk structure of the icing as it crystallizes into a smooth paste.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so it can be heated evenly into a syrup.
Corn syrup
Interferes with sugar crystal formation, keeping the icing smooth rather than grainy.

The step that matters

Stirring after the syrup cools. Stirring during the boil can trigger sugar crystallization, making the icing grainy. Stirring only once the syrup has cooled slightly lets it thicken into a smooth, opaque fondant as the sugar recrystallizes into fine crystals.

“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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