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 ↓
Ornamental Frosting
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil sugar and water until the syrup forms a long thread when dropped from the tip of a spoon.
Make the frosting
Gradually pour the syrup onto the beaten egg whites while beating constantly.
Add the tartaric acid and continue beating until stiff enough to spread.
Beat the remaining frosting until cold and stiff enough to hold its shape when forced through a pastry tube.
If the frosting is too stiff, thin it with a few drops of water.
Coat and decorate
Apply a thin coating over the cake and let it harden.
Once the first coating has hardened, cover with a thicker layer and crease for cutting.
Use a pastry bag and various tubes to decorate the cake as desired.
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
- Sugar
- Forms the syrup that gives the frosting its sweetness and sets into a firm structure.
- Egg whites
- Beaten into a foam that traps air and gives the frosting its light, stiff body.
- Tartaric acid
- Acidity that stabilizes the beaten egg white foam and helps it hold its shape.
The step that matters
Pouring the syrup into the egg whites. Hot syrup must be poured slowly into constantly beaten whites. Pouring too fast or stopping the beating lets the syrup cook and deflate the foam, so the frosting will not stiffen properly.
“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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