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Dessert

Ice Ceeam Icing Foe White Cake

A light, airy icing made from powdered sugar, vanilla, egg whites, and citric acid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Ice Ceeam Icing Foe White Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the powdered sugar in a saucepan until it forms a thick syrup.

  2. Remove from heat and let it cool slightly.

Finish the frosting

  1. Stir in the vanilla extract.

  2. Once cool, fold in the beaten egg whites and citric acid until well combined.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Dissolves into a thick syrup that sweetens and gives the frosting its body.
Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air and set into the frosting's light, airy structure.
Citric acid
Adds acidity that stabilizes the whipped egg whites and gives a tangy edge.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma that rounds out the sweetness of the frosting.

The step that matters

Let the syrup cool before folding in the egg whites. Hot syrup can partly cook the beaten egg whites, causing them to lose volume and turn grainy or lumpy. Cooling the syrup first lets the whites stay foamy and blend smoothly into the frosting.

“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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