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 ↓
Boiled Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil the sugar in water until it reaches the 'hair' stage.
Whip and combine
Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form.
While beating the egg white, slowly pour in the hot syrup.
Use the icing immediately.
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 + eggtop 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
- Granulated sugar
- Provides sweetness and, cooked into a syrup, sets firm as the icing cools.
- Egg white
- Whipped into a foam that traps air, giving the icing a light, fluffy body.
The step that matters
Pouring the hot syrup into the beaten egg white. Pouring the syrup slowly while beating spreads the heat evenly, so the hot syrup partly sets the egg white proteins without deflating the foam. Pouring too fast can collapse the foam or leave cooked streaks of egg white.
“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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