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Dessert

Boiled Frosting

A frosting made by boiling sugar and adding it to beaten egg white, flavored with vanilla or lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Boiled Frosting

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Boiled Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, cream of tartar, and boiling water in a saucepan; stir over low heat until sugar dissolves.

  2. Boil gently without stirring until a soft ball forms in cold water (238°F).

  3. Cool the syrup gradually.

Finish and serve

  1. Slowly add the syrup to the stiffly beaten egg white while continuing to beat until thickened.

  2. Add flavoring.

  3. Pour over the cake.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Sugar
Dissolves into the syrup and provides sweetness and the body of the frosting.
Egg white
Whipped with the hot syrup to form a foam that sets into a light, airy frosting.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping it stay smooth and keeping the frosting stable.

The step that matters

Adding the syrup to the egg white. The syrup must be added slowly while beating. Pouring it in too fast can deflate the whipped egg white and prevent the frosting from thickening properly.

“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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