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Dessert

Boiled Frosting

A frosting made by boiling sugar syrup and folding in stiffly beaten egg whites, optionally with almonds or hickory-nut meats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Boiled Frosting

Why it works: Almond and meat work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 486 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Boiled Frosting

frosts the top of two large cakes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the sugar and hot water; boil briskly for 5 minutes until it threads when dropped from a spoon.

  3. While beating the egg whites, pour the boiling syrup in a small stream.

  4. If desired, add the blanched and pounded almonds or chopped hickory-nut meats.

  5. This will frost the top of two large cakes.

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. Almond + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together486 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

  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

Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
Granulated sugar
Boiled with water into a syrup that sets and sweetens the frosting.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must be poured in a thin stream while the whites are beaten. Pouring it too fast or all at once can deflate the foam, and the hot syrup gently cooks the whites as it is beaten in, which helps the frosting hold its shape.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Almondthe original
  4. Nutsfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, meat. 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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