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 icing
Dissolve the sugar in the water and bring to a boil.
Cook until it reaches the soft ball stage.
Slowly add the lightly beaten egg white while beating briskly.
Add your chosen flavoring.
Finish
Spread the icing on a cold cake.
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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the icing and, cooked to the soft ball stage, sets into a firm, glossy coating.
- Egg white
- Beaten into the hot syrup, it adds air and a light, fluffy body to the icing.
The step that matters
Slowly add the egg white while beating briskly. Adding the hot syrup's counterpart too fast or without steady beating can cook the egg white in clumps instead of blending it smoothly. Constant beating lets the egg white trap air evenly, which gives the icing its light texture and volume.
“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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