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 ↓
Golden Icing for Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine sugar and water in a saucepan.
Boil until it reaches the candy stage.
Make the icing
Beat egg whites until frothy.
Slowly pour hot candy into beaten egg whites while stirring continuously.
Continue to beat mixture until almost cool.
Add flavoring to taste.
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.
-
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
- New orleans sugar
- Dissolves and boils into a syrup that sets into the icing's sweet, firm body.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into foam that the hot syrup cooks and stabilizes, giving the icing a light, airy texture.
The step that matters
Pouring the hot candy into the egg whites. Pour the hot syrup slowly while stirring constantly. Adding it all at once or without stirring can cook parts of the whites unevenly and collapse the foam, leaving a dense, grainy icing.
“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.
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.