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Dessert

Directions for Frosting

A frosting made from beaten egg whites, powdered sugar, and optional flavoring and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rose and almond 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 ↓

Directions for Frosting

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Gradually add powdered sugar while beating until the icing is smooth, about 30 minutes.

  3. Add your chosen flavoring.

Frost the cake

  1. If the cake is rough, dust with flour and remove loose particles with a cloth.

  2. Pour the frosting around the center of the cake and smooth it with a knife.

  3. If the frosting is stiff, dip the knife in cold water.

  4. Frost the cake while it is still warm.

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. Rose + almondtop 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. Egg + sugartop 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. Egg + almondtop 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the foam to sweeten and thicken the frosting into a smooth icing.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to a stiff froth. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks, since the air trapped in the foam gives the frosting its lightness. Under-whipped whites will leave the icing runny and flat.

“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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