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Dessert

Icing for Fruit Tarts, Puffs, or Pastry

A simple icing made from beaten egg whites, pounded sugar, and water, used to glaze fruit tarts, puffs, or pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar 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 ↓

Icing for Fruit Tarts, Puffs, or Pastry

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the icing

  1. Beat the egg whites in a half-pint mug until solid froth forms.

  2. Spread some beaten egg white in the middle of the pie using a pastry brush.

  3. Sift plenty of pounded sugar over the egg white and press it down with your hand.

  4. Wash the brush and gradually add water until the sugar dissolves.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the pie in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 10 minutes.

  2. Serve the pie cold.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a froth, they set into a crisp, light layer when baked.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the icing and, once dissolved, forms a firm glossy coating.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until solid froth forms. Egg whites must be beaten until the foam holds its shape, because trapped air is what gives the icing its light, set structure. Under-beaten whites run and do not hold the sugar.

“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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