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Dessert

Ice Cream Icing for White Cake

A sugar-based icing made with vanilla, egg whites, citric acid, and water for spreading on white cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Ice Cream Icing for White Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil 2 cups of powdered sugar to a thick syrup.

  2. Add 3 teaspoons of vanilla and let it cool.

  3. Once cool, mix in the beaten egg whites and 2 teaspoons of citric acid.

Make the icing

  1. In a separate bowl, combine 1 pound of powdered sugar with 1 tablespoon of cold water.

  2. Beat 3 egg whites lightly and add to the sugar and water mixture.

  3. Place the bowl in a vessel of boiling water.

  4. Heat until the mixture becomes thin and clear.

  5. Continue heating until it thickens.

  6. Remove from heat.

  7. Stir until it cools.

  8. Stir until it thickens enough to spread with a knife.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Vanilla + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Powdered sugar
Provides sweetness and, once cooked, the body that sets the icing.
Egg whites
Whipped proteins that add lightness and help the icing set firm and glossy.
Citric acid
Adds a little acidity that stabilises the egg white foam and keeps the icing from turning grainy.

The step that matters

Heating over boiling water until thin and clear. Heating the sugar and egg white mixture gently over boiling water cooks the egg whites without scrambling them. Stop when it thickens, since overheating makes the icing thin and sticky rather than spreadable.

“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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