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Dessert

Directions for Frosting

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Directions for Frosting

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.

  3. Add your choice of flavoring.

Frost the cake

  1. Prepare the frosting while the cake is baking.

  2. Invert a tin milk pan on a clean surface and place the cake on it.

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

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + rosetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,840 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Sweetens the frosting and, beaten in gradually, thickens it into a smooth icing.
Cornstarch
Stabilizes the frosting and helps it hold its shape and smoothness.

The step that matters

Adding the powdered sugar. Sugar must be added gradually while beating. Adding it all at once can deflate the whipped egg white foam and leave the icing lumpy or runny rather than smooth and stable.

“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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