Skip to main content
Dessert

Iceing for Rich Cakes, &C

A thick, lemon‑flavored icing made from egg whites and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Iceing for Rich Cakes, &C

Ingredients

Directions

Make the icing

  1. Combine egg whites and powdered sugar in a deep, grease-free glazed pan until thick like rich cream.

  2. Beat the mixture with a wooden spoon until it thickens.

  3. Add the strained lemon juice and beat again until it clings to the spoon.

Ice and decorate

  1. Drop icing on top of the cake and smooth it over the top and sides to about ⅛ inch thick with a clean knife.

  2. Place the cake in a dry area; it will dry in a few hours.

  3. If desired, decorate while wet with sugar figures, candied peel, or colored sugar.

  4. Once dry, further decorate with pippin paste, gum paste, piping, or paint.

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 + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg whites
Whip into a thick foam that gives the icing its body and structure.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whites to add sweetness and a smooth, firm texture as it dries.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps keep the icing stable.

The step that matters

Beat until the icing clings to the spoon. Under-beating leaves the icing thin and runny, so it will not hold on the cake; over-beating can make it dry and brittle. Stop when it is thick enough to cling.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More cake icing recipes

White 8Bride 4Rich 4Twelfth 4Wedding 4Chocolate 3 See all 144 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes