Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
White Frosting
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
In a saucepan, combine sugar and water.
Boil until the mixture forms a hair-like thread.
Finish the frosting
Pour the hot syrup over the beaten egg whites.
Stir until the frosting thickens enough to spread.
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.
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and, dissolved into syrup, forms the structure that sets the frosting.
- Egg whites
- Whipped foam that the hot syrup cooks and stabilises, giving the frosting its light, airy body.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can be boiled into a syrup without crystallising.
The step that matters
Boiling the syrup to a hair-like thread. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration to set properly. Too little boiling leaves the frosting runny; too much makes it stiff and grainy as 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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