Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Fondant Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine sugar, water, and cream of tartar in a saucepan.
Stir until boiling, then stop stirring.
Boil until it forms a soft ball in cold water.
Cool and work
Pour onto an oiled pan or platter.
Once slightly cooled, work it until it becomes a soft, creamy mass.
Flavor and melt
Flavor and color to taste when needed, then heat over hot water until melted.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cane sugar
- Forms the bulk of the icing and sets into its soft, creamy body as it cools.
- Cream of tartar
- Its acidity helps prevent large sugar crystals from forming, keeping the icing smooth.
The step that matters
Boil to a soft ball stage. The sugar concentration reached at this point controls the final texture. Boiling too little leaves the icing runny and soft, while boiling too long makes it stiff and hard to work. Stirring after boiling starts can also trigger grainy crystallization.
“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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