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Dessert

Transparent Icing

A clear glaze made from sugar, water, and lemon juice, boiled to 229°F and beaten until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Transparent Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar and water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until the mixture reaches 229°F (109°C) on a sugar thermometer.

  3. Skim the sugar while boiling and brush the sides of the pan with clean water.

Finish and use the icing

  1. Once at 229°F, pour the mixture into a clean basin and add the lemon juice.

  2. Beat with a wooden spoon until thick and white.

  3. Pour over the cake.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Loaf sugar
Forms the syrup that sets into a glossy, sweet icing as it cools and thickens.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar syrup smooth and less prone to graining.

The step that matters

Boiling to 229°F (109°C). The syrup's final sugar concentration depends on the temperature reached. Stopping early leaves the icing runny and slow to set, while going too far makes it hard and brittle. Use a sugar thermometer and skim the surface so the syrup stays clear.

“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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