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 ↓
Frosted Currants
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
In a bowl, combine egg whites and water.
Select large, fine bunches of currants.
Frost and dry
Dip each bunch in the egg mixture, then roll in powdered sugar.
Place currants on waxed paper to dry.
Once dried, dip the currants a second time in powdered sugar.
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 whites
- Form a thin, sticky coating that holds the powdered sugar to the fruit.
- Powdered sugar
- Forms a crisp, sweet, frosted shell over the coating once dried.
The step that matters
Drying the coated currants. The first coat must dry fully on the waxed paper before the second dip. If it is still wet, the sugar will clump and dissolve into a damp, uneven layer instead of a crisp frosting.
“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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