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 ↓
Anothbk Boiled Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Cook 1½ pounds of sugar with 1 pint of water over medium heat until it reaches a rope consistency.
Once the mixture is warm, slowly stir in the 7 beaten egg whites.
Beat the mixture vigorously for one hour until well combined and fluffy.
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 sets into a sweet, smooth icing structure.
- Egg whites
- Add protein that whips into foam, giving the icing lightness and fluffy volume.
The step that matters
Cooking the sugar syrup to rope consistency. Syrup cooked too little stays runny and cooked too far turns grainy or hard. Reaching the right concentration determines how the icing sets and feels when beaten.
“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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