Boiled Water Icing
Ingredients
Directions
In a saucepan, combine the sugar and tepid water.
Boil quickly for 7 to 8 minutes.
Remove from heat and add your chosen flavouring.
Beat the mixture until creamy and use as 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
What each ingredient does
- White sugar
- Forms the sweet body of the icing and, as it boils into syrup, sets to a smooth gloss.
- Tepid water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can be boiled into a syrup.
The step that matters
Boil quickly for 7 to 8 minutes. The syrup must reach the right concentration to set properly. Boiling too briefly leaves it runny, while boiling too long makes it hard and brittle once it cools. Beating while it cools then makes it creamy.
“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
The 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.
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipes