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Dessert

French Frosting

A powdered sugar frosting flavored with rose water and lemon, thickened with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rose and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,174 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

French Frosting

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the frosting

  1. In a bowl, combine powdered sugar, rose water, lemon juice, and egg whites.

  2. Beat the mixture until well combined.

Frost and dry

  1. Cover the cake with the frosting using a pastry brush when the cake is half cold.

  2. Place the cake in a 300°F (150°C) oven to dry the icing for 1 hour.

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. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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
Form the structure of the icing, giving it body and a light texture as it dries.
Powdered sugar
Provides sweetness and the bulk that makes up the icing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps stabilise the egg white foam.
Rose water
Adds a floral aroma to the icing.

The step that matters

Frosting the cake when it is half cold. Applying the icing at the right temperature matters: if the cake is too warm, the icing can soften, slide, or soak in, and it will not dry evenly in the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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