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Almond Icing for Cakes

A sweet almond icing made with sugar, ground almonds, eggs, and rose or orange‑flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and rose are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,465 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Icing for Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. In a clean bowl, combine the castor sugar and ground almonds.

  2. Make a hole in the center, break in the eggs, and add the rose water.

  3. Mix into a firm paste, adding another egg if necessary.

Shape and place

  1. Turn the mixture onto a surface dusted with sugar to prevent sticking.

  2. Roll out the icing to the size of the cake and place it on top.

  3. Press the icing smooth with your hand.

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. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Almond + eggtop 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

Castor sugar
Sweetens the paste and adds bulk to its body.
Ground sweet almonds
Provides the main almond flavor and the paste's base texture.
Eggs
Bind the dry ingredients together into a firm, workable paste.

The step that matters

Mix into a firm paste, adding another egg if necessary. Almond paste binds only as well as its moisture allows. Too little egg leaves it crumbly and hard to roll, while too much makes it sticky and soft. Add eggs gradually and stop once it holds together.

“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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