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Dessert

Plain Boiled Frosting

A frosting made by boiling sugar syrup and folding it into beaten egg, then adding vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Plain Boiled Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Mix sugar, cream of tartar, and cold water in a saucepan.

  2. Place the saucepan on the stove.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly.

  4. Cook without stirring until the syrup drops from a wooden spoon like honey.

  5. Remove the saucepan from heat.

Make the frosting

  1. Add 3 tablespoons of syrup to the beaten egg, beating constantly.

  2. Return the remaining syrup to the heat.

  3. Cook until it spins a thread.

  4. Remove the saucepan from heat.

  5. Pour the syrup into the egg mixture.

  6. Continue beating the mixture.

  7. Add the vanilla extract.

  8. Beat until the frosting cools slightly and begins to glaze on the sides of the pan.

Frost and serve

  1. Pour the frosting on the cake.

  2. Spread the frosting evenly.

  3. Let the frosting cool before cutting.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Granulated sugar
Forms the sweet syrup that becomes the frosting's body.
Egg
Beaten into a foam that gives the frosting its light, airy texture.
Cream of tartar
Acidity that helps keep the syrup smooth and stabilizes the beaten egg foam.
Cold water
Dissolves the sugar so the syrup can boil and reach the right concentration.

The step that matters

Cook the syrup to the thread stage. Syrup that is undercooked stays runny and the frosting will not set, while overcooked syrup turns hard and grainy. Stirring after the boil starts can cause sugar crystals to form, so the syrup is left alone until it reaches the right stage.

“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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