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Dessert

Seafoam Icing

A light, airy icing made with egg whites, sugars, corn syrup, butter, evaporated milk, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and evaporated milk share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 59 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Seafoam Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the icing

  1. In a saucepan, moisten the sugars with evaporated milk, then add corn syrup and butter.

  2. Cook the mixture until it reaches the soft ball stage.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Pour the hot sugar mixture over the egg whites gradually, mixing well.

  5. Add baking powder after removing from heat and continue to beat until creamy.

Finish and serve

  1. If desired, fold in nuts and spread the icing on the cake.

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. Syrup + evaporated milktop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + evaporated milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to form the airy, foamy structure of the icing.
White sugar
Sweetens the icing and, cooked to soft ball stage, sets its texture when cooled.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel flavour to the icing.
Corn syrup
Helps prevent sugar crystals from forming, keeping the icing smooth.
Baking powder
Lightens the beaten icing, adding volume and a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Pour the hot sugar mixture over the egg whites gradually. Pouring slowly while beating lets the hot syrup cook and stabilise the egg white foam without deflating it. Dumping it in at once can collapse the foam and leave the icing dense.

“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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