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Dessert

Ice Ceeam Icing Foe White Cake

A powdered sugar icing for white cake, made with vanilla, citric acid, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Ice Ceeam Icing Foe White Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil 2 cups of powdered sugar with enough water to make a thick syrup.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in 3 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

  3. Let it cool, then add the beaten egg whites and 2 teaspoons of citric acid.

Make the icing

  1. In a separate bowl, combine 1 pound of powdered sugar with 1 tablespoon of cold water.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites to the sugar and water mixture.

  3. Place the bowl in a vessel of boiling water and heat until the mixture becomes thin and clear.

  4. Continue heating until it thickens, then remove from heat.

  5. Stir until cool and thick enough to spread with a knife.

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

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Vanilla + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Powdered sugar
Provides sweetness and, dissolved into syrup, the body of the icing.
Egg whites
Whipped into the mixture to give the icing its light, airy structure.
Citric acid
Adds a little acidity that helps stabilize the egg white foam and keeps the icing white.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma and flavor to the icing.

The step that matters

Heating over boiling water until thin and clear. Heating the sugar and water mixture dissolves the sugar fully so the icing becomes smooth and glossy. Overheating or stirring while hot can make it grainy or cause it to set too firmly, so heat gently and watch for the mixture to thicken.

“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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