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Dessert

Gelatine Frosting

A baked dough made with gelatine, butter, sugar, flour, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Gelatine Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the gelatine mixture

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in boiling water and strain it.

  2. Thicken the mixture with powdered sugar and add your desired flavoring.

Make the dough

  1. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the flour and eggs, mixing until combined.

  3. If necessary, add a little more flour.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough very thin on a sugared surface.

  2. Cut into any shape and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Gelatine
Dissolves and sets, giving the mixture body and thickening it.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dough rich and tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and, creamed with butter, traps air for a lighter texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together once baked.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure.

The step that matters

Roll out the dough very thin. Thin dough bakes quickly and evenly in a hot oven, so it can brown or burn before it dries out if rolled thick and unevenly. A sugared surface keeps it from sticking while rolling.

“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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