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 ↓
Roped Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the sugar and water until it forms a rope or hairs.
Remove from heat and beat in the egg whites.
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.
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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
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the icing and, boiled with water, forms the syrup that sets the icing.
- Egg whites
- Beaten into the hot syrup, they add airy body and help the icing hold its shape.
The step that matters
Boil the sugar and water until it forms a rope or hairs. The syrup must reach the right concentration before beating. Stopping early leaves the icing runny, while boiling too long makes it stiff and hard to spread once the egg whites are added.
“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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