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 Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine sugar and water in a saucepan.
Boil until the mixture clears and forms threads when dripped from a spoon.
Whip and combine
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gradually add the boiled sugar to the egg whites while beating briskly.
Continue beating until the icing is snowy white and reaches your desired thickness.
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
- Sugar
- Dissolves into the water and cooks to a syrup that sets and sweetens the icing.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
The step that matters
Boil the sugar syrup to the thread stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration to set properly. Undercooked syrup leaves the icing runny, while overcooked syrup turns it hard and grainy once it cools.
“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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