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Dessert

Boiled Frosting

A frosting made by boiling powdered sugar with water and mixing with beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 powdered sugar and clear water in a saucepan.

  2. Let the mixture sit until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Boil the mixture until it is clear and forms threads when dripped from a spoon.

Whip and combine

  1. Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff peaks form.

  2. Once the syrup is lukewarm, pour it into the bowl with the egg whites and mix well for 30 minutes.

  3. Flavor the frosting with vanilla, rose-water, or lemon juice as desired.

Apply

  1. Coat the cake with a light dusting of flour before applying the frosting.

  2. Apply the first coat of frosting as soon as it is well mixed.

  3. Allow it to dry in a warm place.

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

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

  3. 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

Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the water to form the syrup that gives the frosting its sweetness and body.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to form the airy foam that gives the frosting its light structure.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup to the thread stage. Boiling sugar and water to the thread stage concentrates the syrup so it sets firm when cooled. Underboiled syrup stays runny and can weep, while overboiled syrup turns grainy or hard.

“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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