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Dessert

Cream Fondant Icing

A sweet icing made from sugar, water, milk, cream, and a pinch of salt, cooked to a soft ball stage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cream Fondant Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fondant

  1. Combine water, milk, cream, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Boil gently until it reaches the soft ball stage.

  3. Cool until it is warm to the touch.

  4. Knead the mixture well.

Remelt and finish

  1. Remelt by placing in a double boiler.

  2. Add desired flavors as needed.

  3. Spread it on your cake.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Sugar
Dissolves in the water to form a syrup that sets into a smooth, sweet icing as it cools.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so the syrup can be boiled and concentrated evenly.
Milk
Adds milk solids and moisture that keep the icing soft and smooth rather than grainy.
Cream
Adds fat that makes the icing richer and more tender in texture.

The step that matters

Boiling to the soft ball stage. The sugar concentration reached while boiling sets the final texture. Stopping too early leaves the icing runny, while boiling too long makes it hard and brittle once cooled and kneaded.

“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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