Why it works: Egg and sugar 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 ↓
Quick Frosting
Ingredients
Directions
Break the egg whites into a bowl; do not beat.
Add cornstarch and enough pulverized sugar to achieve a thick consistency.
Spread the frosting on the warm cake for easier cutting when dry.
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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Egg + sugartop 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
- Egg whites
- Form the liquid base that the sugar and cornstarch thicken into a spreadable frosting.
- Cornstarch
- Absorbs liquid and thickens the mixture, giving the frosting body.
- Pulverized sugar
- Adds sweetness and, in quantity, stiffens the mixture to a thick consistency.
The step that matters
Do not beat the egg whites. Beating whites incorporates air and changes their proteins into a foam, making the frosting light and loose instead of the thick, dense texture the recipe needs.
“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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