Why it works: Egg and sugar 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 ↓
Steamed Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the icing
Boil sugar and water until it spins a long thread or forms a hard ball in cold water.
While boiling, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Slowly add boiling sugar mixture to egg whites while beating.
Place the icing pan in a larger pan of boiling water, ensuring the inner pan's rim rests on the outer pan's rim.
Keep water boiling and stir icing constantly until it thickens and coats the pan's sides.
Ice the cake
Spread icing on the cake with a broad knife while hot.
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.
-
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they form the airy foam that gives the icing its light body.
- Granulated sugar
- Cooked into a syrup that sets with the whites and gives the icing its sweetness and gloss.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can be boiled into a syrup of the right concentration.
The step that matters
Keep the water boiling and stir constantly over the double boiler. Gentle, constant heat and stirring cook the egg white and sugar mixture evenly and thicken it. If the water stops boiling or stirring pauses, the icing can thicken unevenly or set before it is spread.
“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.
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.