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Dessert

Plain Frosting

A light frosting made from egg whites and powdered sugar, optionally flavored with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Plain Frosting

Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Plain Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. In a bowl, place the egg whites.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar and beat with a wooden spoon.

  3. Gradually add more powdered sugar by the spoonful, beating well after each addition.

  4. Continue until the frosting leaves a clean-cut line when drawn with a knife.

  5. If desired, add lemon juice for flavor and to thin the frosting if too stiff.

Frost and set

  1. Frost the cake while it is warm, starting with a thin coating to fill the pores.

  2. Spread a thicker layer evenly over the entire surface.

  3. Mark where to cut and set in a cool place to harden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg whites
Whip into a foam that gives the frosting its structure and light body.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whipped whites to add sweetness and firm the frosting as it sets.
Lemon juice
Adds a bright acidic flavor and can loosen a frosting that has become too stiff.

The step that matters

Adding the powdered sugar gradually. Adding sugar too fast deflates the whipped egg white foam and makes the frosting runny or grainy. Adding it a spoonful at a time lets each addition fully incorporate, building a stable, glossy frosting that holds a clean line.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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