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Dessert

Plain Boiled Frosting

A simple frosting made by boiling sugar syrup and folding it into beaten egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Plain Boiled Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Mix sugar, cream of tartar, and cold water in a saucepan until well combined.

  2. Place the saucepan on the stove and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly.

  3. Cook without stirring until the syrup drops from a wooden spoon like honey.

  4. Remove the saucepan from heat.

Make the frosting

  1. Add 3 tablespoons of the syrup to the beaten egg white, beating constantly.

  2. Return the remaining syrup to the heat and cook until it spins a thread.

  3. Remove the saucepan from heat.

  4. Pour the remaining syrup into the egg white mixture.

  5. Continue beating and add the vanilla extract.

  6. Beat until the frosting cools slightly and begins to glaze on the sides of the pan.

Finish

  1. Pour the frosting over the cake, spread evenly, and let cool before cutting.

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

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

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 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

Granulated sugar
Dissolves into the syrup, providing sweetness and the base structure of the frosting.
Egg white
Beaten stiff, it traps air and gives the frosting its light, fluffy structure.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping keep it smooth and stabilizing the beaten egg white foam.

The step that matters

Cooking the syrup to the right stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration before it meets the egg white. Too little cooking leaves a runny frosting; too much makes it hard and grainy once it cools.

“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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