Why it works: Egg and sugar 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 ↓
Boiled Frosting
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the egg white to a stiff froth.
In a saucepan, combine the sugar and hot water; boil briskly for 5 minutes until it "jingles" when dropped in cold water.
Pour the boiling syrup onto the beaten egg white in a small stream while beating hard.
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.
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Egg + sugartop 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
- Egg white
- Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
- Granulated sugar
- Boiled into a syrup that sets and sweetens the frosting as it cools.
- Hot water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can be boiled into a syrup.
The step that matters
Pouring the boiling syrup into the egg white. Pour the syrup in a thin stream while beating hard so it blends evenly into the foam. Pouring too fast or without beating can deflate the whites and leave lumps of cooked sugar.
“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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