Why it works: Sugar and egg 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 ↓
Soft Boiled Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Boil sugar and water together until it forms a thread.
Pour the syrup over the beaten egg whites and mix well.
Dissolve the citric acid in a small amount of hot water and add it to the mixture.
Beat with a spoon or egg beater until thick.
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 + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 to provide sweetness and the body that sets the icing.
- Egg whites
- Trap air when beaten, giving the icing its light, fluffy structure.
- Citric acid
- Adds a little acidity that stabilises the egg white foam and keeps the icing from turning grainy.
The step that matters
Pouring the syrup over the egg whites. The syrup must be hot and at thread stage, and poured in a thin steady stream while beating. Hot syrup cooks the egg whites gently into a stable foam; if it is too cool or added all at once, the whites stay runny or the icing turns out lumpy.
“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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