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Dessert

Icing Filling

A sweet filling made from sugar syrup, beaten egg whites, blanched almonds, and bitter almond flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Icing Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the water and stir constantly until it begins to boil.

  2. Cook until it forms a soft ball when dropped in water.

Finish the filling

  1. Pour the syrup over the beaten egg whites and beat until cool.

  2. Fold in the blanched almonds and add the bitter almond flavoring.

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 + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

  3. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, cooked into syrup, gives it body and a set texture.
Egg whites
Whipped foam that the hot syrup cooks into a light, stable, airy filling.
Blanched almonds
Add crunch and a mild nutty texture to the soft filling.
Bitter almond flavoring
Adds a strong almond aroma that rounds out the sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook the syrup to the soft ball stage. Sugar syrup must reach the soft ball stage to set properly once cooled. Undercooked syrup stays runny and weakens the filling, while overcooked syrup turns hard and grainy. Stirring until it boils helps the sugar dissolve fully so it does not crystallize.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

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

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