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 Icings
Ingredients
Directions
Make the icing
Boil the sugar and water until it forms a thick syrup.
Slowly pour the syrup into the beaten egg whites while beating the mixture rapidly.
Continue beating until the mixture thickens and cools.
Finish
Use the icing to frost cakes.
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
- Dissolves into syrup that sets into a sweet, glossy icing as it cools.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can be boiled into a syrup.
The step that matters
Pouring the syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must be hot and poured slowly while beating rapidly. Pouring too fast or letting the whites deflate can cause the foam to collapse, leaving a runny icing instead of a thick, fluffy one.
“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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