Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Caramel Frosting
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
Melt and brown 4 tablespoons of sugar in a saucepan.
Once melted, add 1 cup of boiling water and 1½ cups of sugar.
Boil the mixture until it forms threads.
Finish the frosting
Remove from heat and beat the mixture, adding sweet cream until it reaches a soft consistency.
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 + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Browned sugar forms the caramel flavour, and dissolved sugar thickens the syrup for frosting.
- Sweet cream
- Adds fat and moisture, softening the cooked syrup into a spreadable frosting.
The step that matters
Boil until it forms threads. Sugar syrup sets as it cools based on its concentration. Boiling to the thread stage concentrates the sugar enough for a frosting that firms properly. Stopping early leaves it runny, and boiling too long makes it hard.
“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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