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 ↓
Icing or Frosting
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Sift the icing sugar through a fine sieve.
In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Make the frosting
Gradually add the sifted icing sugar to the egg whites, folding gently until well combined.
Use immediately to frost cakes or cookies.
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
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
- Icing sugar
- Dissolves into the foam to add sweetness and body to the frosting.
The step that matters
Folding in the icing sugar. Overmixing or stirring vigorously deflates the whipped egg white foam, causing the frosting to lose volume and become runny. Adding the sugar gradually and folding gently keeps the air bubbles intact.
“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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