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 ↓
Boiled Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the sugar and water together until it threads strongly.
Beat the egg white to a stiff froth.
Add the cream of tartar to the egg white.
Gradually beat in the sugar syrup until cold and thick.
Flavor to taste and use.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
- Caster sugar
- Forms the syrup that sets into a sweet, glossy, thick icing.
- Egg white
- Whipped to a foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
- Cream of tartar
- Stabilizes the whipped egg white so its foam holds together longer.
The step that matters
Gradually beat in the sugar syrup until cold and thick. Hot syrup added too quickly can deflate the whipped egg white foam. Adding it slowly in a thin stream lets the proteins keep their air while the syrup cools and thickens the icing.
“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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