Why it works: Sugar and egg 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 ↓
Boiled Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Dissolve sugar in water and boil until clear.
Whip the egg whites
Beat egg whites to a very stiff froth.
Make and use the icing
Pour the boiling sugar mixture over the egg whites while beating continuously for 10 minutes.
Frost when both the icing and cake are warm.
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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Sugar + eggtop 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
- Sugar
- Dissolves into the syrup that sets the icing and provides sweetness.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can be boiled into a syrup.
The step that matters
Pouring the boiling syrup into the whites while beating. Pouring slowly and beating continuously lets the hot syrup cook the egg whites and blend evenly, so the foam stays stable and does not collapse or turn grainy.
“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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