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Dessert

Uncooked Icing

A citrus-flavored icing made from powdered sugar, orange juice, lemon juice, hot water, and orange rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Uncooked Icing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Sift the powdered sugar into a bowl.

  2. Add the orange juice, lemon juice, and hot water.

  3. Mix until smooth and spreadable.

  4. Incorporate the orange rind for flavor.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 the bulk and sweetness that give the icing its body.
Orange juice
Adds liquid to thin the sugar and contributes fruity acidity and flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the flavor.
Hot water
Helps dissolve the sugar so the icing becomes smooth and spreadable.

The step that matters

Mix until smooth and spreadable. Powdered sugar clumps easily and dissolves slowly. Mixing thoroughly breaks up lumps and gives an even texture, while the amount of liquid controls how thick the icing is.

“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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