Name: Windom Icing
Ingredients: 1 pound pulverized sugar; ½ cup boiling water; ½ cup raisins, seeded and chopped; 1 pound Russia isinglass

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 ↓

Windom Icing

Ingredients

1 pound pulverized sugar
½ cup boiling water
½ cup raisins, seeded and chopped
1 pound Russia isinglass

Directions

Dissolve the isinglass in boiling water.
Stir in the pulverized sugar.
Add the chopped raisins and mix well.

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.

Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Isinglass: Gelatin-like protein that dissolves in hot water and sets as the icing cools, giving it body.
Pulverized sugar: Sweetens the icing and thickens it into a smooth, spreadable mass.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the icing.

“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.