Why it works: Butter and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Vienna Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Cream together the fresh butter and icing sugar using a wooden spoon.
Add the liqueur and any desired flavoring, and mix well.
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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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh butter
- Provides fat and body, creaming with sugar to give the icing a smooth, spreadable texture.
- Icing sugar
- Sweetens the icing and, creamed with butter, helps it set firm and smooth.
- Liqueur
- Adds liquid and aroma, loosening the icing and giving it a distinct flavor.
The step that matters
Creaming the butter and icing sugar. Beating the softened butter with sugar traps air and dissolves the sugar into the fat, so the icing turns light and smooth instead of grainy or dense.
“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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