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Dessert

Ice Cream Icing for White Cake

A sweet icing made from powdered sugar, vanilla, citric acid, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Ice Cream Icing for White Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil 2 cups of powdered sugar with enough water to make a thick syrup.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in 3 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

  3. Once cooled, fold in the beaten egg whites and 2 teaspoons of citric acid.

Make the frosting

  1. In a separate bowl, combine 1 pound of powdered sugar with 1 tablespoon of cold water.

  2. Add 3 beaten egg whites to the sugar and water mixture.

  3. Place the bowl in a vessel of boiling water and heat until the mixture becomes thin and clear.

  4. Continue heating until it thickens, then remove from heat.

  5. Stir until cool and thick enough to spread on cakes.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Whipped into the mixture to add structure and a light, airy texture.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into a syrup that sets into a sweet, smooth frosting body.
Citric acid
Adds acidity that stabilizes the egg white foam and brightens the sweetness.

The step that matters

Heating the sugar and water over boiling water. Heating must be gentle and stop once the mixture thickens. Overheating can make the frosting grainy or cause it to set too firm, while underheating leaves it runny and unable to hold its shape.

“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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