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 ↓
Maple Sugar Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the icing
Boil maple sugar and water together until thick.
Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form.
Stir the beaten egg white into the syrup until cool.
Finish
Spread the icing on the 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
- Maple sugar
- Provides the sweetness and, as the syrup thickens and cools, the body of the icing.
- Egg white
- Whipped into a foam that traps air, making the icing light and fluffy.
The step that matters
Stirring the beaten egg white into the syrup until cool. Beaten egg white is a foam held together by thin protein films that can collapse if overworked or deflated. Stir gently and stop once the mixture has cooled and holds its shape, so the icing stays light rather than 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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