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Plain Frosting

A light frosting made from beaten egg whites and sugar, optionally flavored with citrus or fruit juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Plain Frosting

Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Plain Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form, about 30 minutes.

  3. If not stiff enough, add more sugar.

Color and spread

  1. To color the icing yellow, strain the grated peel of lemon or orange through muslin and whip the juice into the frosting.

  2. For a pink color, use strawberry or cranberry juice.

  3. Spread the frosting on the cake using a spatula, dipping the spatula in cold water as needed.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that traps air and gives the frosting its light, stable structure.
Granulated sugar
Stabilizes the whipped foam and gives the frosting its sweetness and body.
Lemon or orange juice
Adds acidity and flavor, and its juice colors the frosting yellow when used.

The step that matters

Beating until stiff peaks form. Underbeaten whites produce a runny frosting that will not hold shape, while overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy. Adding sugar gradually lets the foam stabilize into a smooth, glossy structure.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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