Name: Almond Icing
Ingredients: 3 egg whites; 3 cups powdered sugar; 1 pound blanched almonds, chopped fine; rose flavoring

Why it works: Almond and rose are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,465 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Icing

Ingredients

3 egg whites
3 cups powdered sugar
1 pound blanched almonds, chopped fine
rose flavoring

Directions

In a bowl, mix the egg whites and powdered sugar until well combined.
Add the chopped blanched almonds to the mixture.
Flavor the icing with rose flavoring to taste.

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.

Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,465 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,584 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites: Binds the powdered sugar into a smooth, spreadable icing.
Powdered sugar: Sweetens the icing and thickens it as it dissolves into the egg whites.
Blanched almonds: Add nutty flavor and a slightly crunchy, textured body to 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.