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Dessert

White Icing

A light, glossy icing made from sugar syrup and beaten egg whites, optionally colored or flavored.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

White Icing

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Cook the sugar and ⅓ cup water until it forms threads when poured from a spoon.

Make the icing

  1. Beat the egg white to a stiff froth.

  2. Slowly pour the syrup onto the beaten egg white in a fine stream while beating.

  3. Continue beating until thick enough to spread.

  4. If the icing becomes grainy, add a little hot water.

  5. If not cooked enough, place the bowl in a warm oven and stir occasionally.

Ice the cake

  1. Trim the brown crust from a layer cake before icing.

  2. Spread icing thinly between each layer and smooth over the tops and sides.

Add optional flavors and colors

  1. For colored icing, dissolve fruit coloring in 1 teaspoon of water and add gradually.

  2. For almond filling, sprinkle chopped almonds on top of the icing.

  3. For coconut icing, sprinkle freshly grated coconut over the moist icing.

  4. For marshmallow icing, melt marshmallows with hot water, then mix into the icing before spreading.

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. Almond + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

  4. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolved into syrup that cooks to threads, providing sweetness and the body of the icing.
Egg white
Beaten to a stiff froth, it traps air and gives the icing its light, spreadable structure.

The step that matters

Pouring the syrup onto the egg white. The syrup must be poured in a fine stream while beating so it blends smoothly. Pouring it in quickly can cause the sugar to set in lumps or grains, making the icing grainy.

Swap the almond

The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, coconut):

  1. Macadamia nutfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Cashew nutfits about as well
  4. Brazil nutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, coconut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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