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Dessert

Plain Frosting or Icing for Cakes

A simple frosting made from egg white, powdered sugar, salt, and optional flavorings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Strawberry and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,385 recipes. Both carry p-vinylguaiacol, which smells spicy, fruity. The science ↓

Plain Frosting or Icing for Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Ensure the egg white and the cake are cold.

  2. In a large cup, combine the egg white and a pinch of salt.

Make and spread the frosting

  1. Add a small handful of powdered sugar and begin beating immediately.

  2. Continue adding powdered sugar gradually until fully incorporated.

  3. Spread the frosting evenly over the cake with a broad knife.

Adjust and finish

  1. If the frosting is too thin, beat in more powdered sugar.

  2. For a thicker coat, allow the first layer to dry before adding a second.

  3. If the icing dries out, thin it with a little water to achieve a smooth consistency.

  4. For coloring, reserve some icing and tint it with fruit juices or other colorings as desired.

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. Strawberry + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,385 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-vinylguaiacol (spicy, fruity).

  2. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Strawberry + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together433 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Whips into a foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whipped egg white to sweeten and thicken the frosting.

The step that matters

Beating in the powdered sugar. Adding sugar too quickly or unevenly can collapse the foam or leave lumps. Gradual additions while beating keep the egg white stable and the frosting smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, strawberry, vanilla, almond, rose, chocolate):

  1. Raspberryfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, strawberry, vanilla, almond, rose, chocolate. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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