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 ↓
Boiled Iceing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine sugar and cold water in a saucepan and bring to a boil for 5 minutes.
Beat and combine
Beat the egg white until stiff.
Slowly stir the hot syrup into the beaten egg white.
If the icing is too thin, return some syrup to the stove to thicken before adding.
If too thick, thin with a little hot water.
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
- White sugar
- Dissolves into the syrup that sweetens the icing and thickens it as it cools.
- Egg white
- Beaten into stiff foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
The step that matters
Slowly stir the hot syrup into the beaten egg white. Adding the hot syrup slowly lets the egg white foam take in heat and sugar gradually. Pouring it in quickly can deflate the foam and leave the icing grainy or runny.
“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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