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Directions for Frosting

A recipe for making a whipped egg white frosting for cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Directions for Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. Break the eggs into a flat dish and beat with a fork until stiff.

  2. Add the powdered sugar and flavoring, or mix the sugar in before beating the eggs.

  3. Ensure everything is thoroughly beaten before frosting the cake.

  4. If the frosting is too stiff, dip the knife in cold water to help spread it.

  5. If the frosting dries too quickly, add a drop or two of hot water.

Prepare the cake

  1. If the cake is rough or brown, dust with flour and rub off loose particles with a cloth.

Frost and decorate

  1. Spread the frosting smoothly with a knife and let it set in a warm place without browning.

  2. Decorate with raisins, nuts, or candies while the icing is still moist.

Make boiled frosting

  1. For boiled frosting, combine 1 cup of sugar with the egg whites and cover with water.

  2. Boil the sugar mixture without stirring until it ropes, then stir into the beaten egg whites until cool.

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 + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + raisintop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they trap air and give the frosting its light, set structure.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and body, helping the frosting thicken and hold its shape.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites only hold air and form a stable foam when fully beaten. Under-beaten whites produce a runny frosting that will not spread or set well on the cake.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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