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 ↓
Boiled White Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Dissolve the sugar in water and boil until it threads from the spoon.
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Pour the boiling sugar into the egg whites while beating continuously.
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
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the icing and, once boiled, sets into a smooth, glossy texture.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff foam, they form the airy structure of the icing.
The step that matters
Pouring the boiling sugar into the egg whites. The sugar syrup must be hot enough to cook the whites slightly and stabilise the foam. Pouring slowly while beating continuously keeps the syrup from scrambling the egg or deflating the foam.
“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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