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Dessert

White Cream

A simple frosting made from sugar, water, egg white, vanilla, and optional chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

White Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar and water together until it forms a thread.

Beat the frosting

  1. Slowly pour the syrup into the beaten egg white while mixing.

  2. Continue beating until cool enough to spread.

  3. Add the flavoring and mix well.

  4. For chocolate frosting, add the melted chocolate.

Spread

  1. Spread as desired.

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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 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

Sugar
Sweetens the frosting and, as a boiled syrup, helps the foam set glossy and stable.
Egg white
Whips into a light, airy foam that gives the frosting its structure.
Melted chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and richness to the frosting.

The step that matters

Pouring the syrup into the egg white. The syrup must be pour slowly in a thin stream while beating constantly. Hot syrup added quickly can clump or unevenly cook the egg white, so the foam loses its smoothness and volume.

“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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