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
Ingredients
Directions
Make the icing
Boil sugar until it reaches the thread stage.
Beat the egg white to a stiff froth.
Gradually pour the hot sugar into the egg white while beating continuously until the icing is white and smooth.
Flavor the icing
For flavored icing, extract juice from fruit using a sieve or mortar.
For each cup of fruit juice, clarify 1 lb of icing sugar and boil it to the blow stage.
Cool the sugar slightly, then mix in the fruit juice and work it until the sugar grains.
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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Egg + sugartop 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
- Egg white
- Whipped into a stiff froth to trap air and give the icing its structure and white color.
- Fine icing sugar
- Forms the sweet body of the icing and sets firm as it cools.
- Fruit juice
- Adds flavor and moisture to the sugar mixture when flavored icing is wanted.
The step that matters
Pouring the hot sugar into the egg white. The sugar must be hot enough to cook the egg white slightly and set the icing, but poured slowly while beating so the egg white does not deflate or scramble into lumps.
“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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