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Dessert

Almond Icing

A sweet almond icing for cakes made from blanched almonds, powdered sugar, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and rose are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,465 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond paste

  1. Blanch the almonds by pouring boiling water over them and removing the skins.

  2. Once dry, pound the almonds into a paste in a mortar, adding rose water as needed.

  3. When the almonds are fine and smooth, gradually mix in the powdered sugar.

Ice the cake

  1. Spread the icing thickly on your cake.

  2. When the icing is nearly dry, cover with plain icing.

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. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the icing paste.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps firm the paste into a spreadable icing.
Egg whites
Add moisture and help bind the icing so it sets on the cake.
Rose water
Adds aroma and helps moisten the almonds as they are pounded into paste.

The step that matters

Pounding the almonds into a smooth paste. Almonds must be dried and pounded fine and smooth before sugar is added. Any coarse pieces leave a gritty texture, and adding sugar too early can make the paste hard to work into a smooth, even consistency.

“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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