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Dessert

Gelatine Frosting

A light frosting made by dissolving gelatin in cold water and mixing with powdered sugar, optionally flavored with lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Gelatine Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in cold water.

  2. In a bowl, combine the dissolved gelatine with powdered sugar.

  3. Flavor with fresh lemon juice if desired.

  4. If the frosting is too stiff, add water or lemon juice until the desired consistency is reached.

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

Gelatine
Sets with the water to give the frosting body and a firm, spreadable texture.
Powdered sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, forming the main body of the frosting.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine in cold water. Gelatine must hydrate fully in cold water before it is combined with sugar. Undissolved granules stay gritty and unevenly set the frosting.

“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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