Why it works: Egg and sugar 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 ↓
White Frosting
Ingredients
Directions
Make the frosting
Whip the egg white until stiff.
Gradually add the sugar while beating very hard.
Flavor to taste.
Spread on the cake
Spread smoothly over the cake with a broad bladed knife, dipped frequently into hot water.
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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Egg + sugartop 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 white
- Whipped into a foam that holds the frosting's airy structure and volume.
- Sugar
- Dissolves into the foam, adding sweetness and stabilizing the whipped structure.
The step that matters
Gradually add the sugar while beating very hard. Adding sugar slowly while beating lets it dissolve into the egg white foam. Dumping it in at once can collapse the foam and leave a grainy, weepy frosting that will not hold its shape.
“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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