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 ↓
Icing for Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Sift the sugar and starch together.
Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth.
Make the icing
Gradually add the sugar mixture to the egg whites, beating continuously.
Once all the sugar is added, continue beating for 30 minutes.
Finish
Spread the icing on the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven.
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
- Double-refined sugar
- Dissolves into the whites to sweeten and thicken the icing.
- Fine starch
- Helps the icing stay smooth and hold its shape rather than weeping.
- Egg whites
- Beaten into a foam that traps air and gives the icing its light, airy structure.
The step that matters
Beat for the full 30 minutes after the sugar is in. Continued beating dissolves the sugar and lets the foam stiffen and become glossy. Stopping early leaves the icing soft, grainy, or prone to running off the cake.
“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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