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Dessert

To Make Icing for Cakes

A simple icing made from sugar, water, and egg whites, beaten until thick and spreadable.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Make Icing for Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the icing

  1. Pour cold water over the sugar to dissolve lumps.

  2. Beat the egg whites lightly, then add to the sugar and water mixture.

  3. Place the bowl in a vessel of boiling water and beat the mixture.

  4. Continue beating until it becomes clear and thin, then thickens.

  5. Remove from heat and beat until cold and thick enough to spread.

Finish

  1. Spread the icing on the cake with a knife.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

White sugar
Provides sweetness and the bulk of the icing, which sets firm as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped with the sugar syrup, they add structure and lightness to the icing.

The step that matters

Beating over boiling water until the mixture thickens. Gentle heat from the water bath helps the egg white proteins and sugar form a smooth, stable foam. Beating too little leaves it thin, and removing it before it cools and thickens leaves it too runny to 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.

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