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Dessert

Brown Sugar Icing

A sweet icing made with butter, light brown sugar, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Brown Sugar Icing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the butter until creamy.

  2. Gradually add the light brown sugar, mixing well.

  3. Add the sweet cream a little at a time, continuing to mix until smooth.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to give the icing a smooth, rich body and fat-based mouthfeel.
Light brown sugar
Provides sweetness and the caramel flavor and color that define this icing.
Sweet cream
Loosens the mixture and adds moisture so the icing becomes smooth and spreadable.

The step that matters

Adding the cream gradually. Adding the cream a little at a time lets the sugar dissolve evenly and keeps the icing from becoming runny or grainy. Pouring it in all at once can make the texture uneven.

“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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