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Dessert

Plain Frosting

A simple frosting made from eggs, powdered sugar, corn starch, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Plain Frosting

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 ↓

Plain Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. Beat the eggs to a stiff froth.

  2. Gradually work in the powdered sugar and corn-starch.

  3. Add your preferred flavoring.

Finish

  1. Spread over the cake as desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

  3. Egg + corntop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped into a stiff froth to give the frosting its light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whipped eggs to provide sweetness and body.
Corn-starch
Stabilizes the frosting and helps it hold its texture when spread.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs to a stiff froth. Egg whites trap air when beaten, and that foam forms the frosting's structure. If the eggs are under-beaten, the frosting will be dense and may weep or spread poorly.

“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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