Skip to main content
Dessert

Frosting

A light frosting made from egg whites and sugar, optionally flavored and colored.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and strawberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,206 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. In a shallow dish, combine the whites of your eggs with part of the sugar, about ¼ pound or 16 tablespoons for each egg.

  2. Beat the mixture for about 30 minutes, gradually adding the remaining sugar.

  3. Add flavoring, such as lemon juice, if desired.

  4. To color the icing, use strawberry juice for pink or lemon juice and rind for yellow.

Apply and set

  1. Spread the frosting on the cake in large spoonfuls, starting from the center and using a large knife dipped in cold water.

  2. Allow the frosting to dry in a cool, dry place.

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. Lemon + strawberrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,206 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + strawberrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,060 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 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
Whipped into a foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the frosting and, dissolved gradually, helps it become smooth and firm as it dries.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavor, and helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites and sugar. The mixture must be beaten long enough for the sugar to dissolve fully. Undissolved sugar leaves a grainy texture and a frosting that does not dry smooth and glossy.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, strawberry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, strawberry. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesStrawberry Ice CreamStrawberry Ice Cream122 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes