Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Caramel Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Melt the sugar with 1 tablespoon of boiling water.
Once melted, add the ½ cup of boiling water and stir in the butter.
Remove from heat and beat until stiff enough to pour over the cake.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Sugar
- Melts into the caramel base, providing the sweetness and the caramel flavor of the icing.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture in the finished icing.
The step that matters
Beat until stiff enough to pour. As the hot caramel cools, it thickens by losing water and forming a supersaturated syrup. Beat too little and the icing runs off the cake; beat too long and it sets too firm to pour smoothly.
“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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