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 Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Dissolve the sugar in enough water in a saucepan.
Boil the mixture until it thickens enough to drop hard in water.
Whip and finish
Beat the egg white until stiff.
Pour the boiling syrup into the beaten egg white while constantly beating.
Add flavoring and a pinch of tartaric acid if desired.
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
- Forms the syrup that sets into a glossy, sweet icing when cooled.
- Egg white
- Whipped to a foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
- Tartaric acid
- Acid that helps the icing hold its shape and stay firm when hardened.
The step that matters
Pouring the boiling syrup into the egg white. The syrup must be hot enough to cook the egg white partly and form a stable foam. Beating constantly while pouring spreads the heat and prevents the syrup from deflating the whites or forming lumps.
“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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