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 ↓
Bon-bon Frosting
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the base
In a tumbler, break the egg white.
In another tumbler, measure an equal amount of water.
Pour the water into the tumbler with the egg white and stir.
Thicken and spread
Gradually add confectionery sugar until the mixture is thick.
Spread the frosting on the cake.
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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Egg + sugartop 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
- Egg white
- Provides the base liquid that the sugar thickens into a frosting that holds its shape.
- Confectionery sugar
- Sweetens the frosting and stiffens the liquid, giving it a spreadable thickness.
The step that matters
Adding the sugar gradually until thick. Sugar dissolves into the liquid and stiffens it quickly. Adding it a little at a time lets you stop at a spreadable texture, since too much sugar makes the frosting stiff and hard to spread.
“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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