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Icing, for Twelfth or Bride Cake

Icing made from sugar, egg whites, powdered blue, and lemon juice for Twelfth or bride cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Icing, for Twelfth or Bride Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the icing

  1. In a clean, grease-free pan, combine the sugar and egg whites.

  2. Add the powdered blue and beat the mixture with a spatula for 10 minutes.

  3. Squeeze in the lemon juice and continue beating until thick and transparent.

Ice the cake

  1. Warm the cake in an oven or warm place for 5 minutes.

  2. Spread the icing smoothly over the top and sides of the cake.

  3. For a wedding cake, keep it plain; for a Twelfth cake, decorate with gum paste or other fancy items.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Double refined sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, and dissolves into the egg whites to form the icing body.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to create a thick, smooth icing that sets firm on the cake.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that helps stabilise the egg white foam and brightens the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating until thick and transparent. Egg whites need enough sugar and beating to form a stable foam; under-beaten icing stays runny and will not set smooth, while the acid from the lemon helps the foam hold its structure.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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