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 ↓
Pink Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the icing
Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Ice and set
Spread the beaten egg whites over cakes, tarts, or small pastries that have just come out of the oven.
Dredge a little sifted loaf sugar over the icing.
Return the pastries to the oven immediately to harden the icing.
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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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 into stiff peaks to form the foam that becomes the icing coating.
- Sifted loaf sugar
- Dusted over the wet icing to add sweetness and a crisp, sugary surface as it sets.
The step that matters
Returning the pastries to the oven immediately. Egg white foam is unstable and can weep or deflate if it sits. Putting the pastries back into the oven right away sets the whites while they are still hot, so the icing hardens instead of sliding off or turning sticky.
“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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