Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cream Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the icing
Wash the butter thoroughly to remove salt.
Beat the butter to a cream with the rich cream.
Flavor with lemon or vanilla extract.
Thicken the mixture with powdered sugar.
Spread and set
Spread on cake with a knife dipped in cold water.
Let stand for at least one hour before using.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Provides fat for richness and a smooth, spreadable texture.
- Rich cream
- Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the butter into a smooth base.
- Powdered sugar
- Adds sweetness and stiffens the mixture into a thick icing as it is added.
The step that matters
Thicken with powdered sugar. Powdered sugar is added to stiffen the mixture, so it should be added gradually. Too little leaves the icing runny, and too much makes it stiff and hard to spread.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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