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 ↓
Simple Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
In a saucepan, combine the sugar and water. Stir until the sugar dissolves, then stop stirring.
Bring the mixture to a boil until it forms a continuous string when tested with a teaspoon.
Make the icing
In a separate bowl, beat the egg white until thoroughly mixed.
Pour the hot syrup into the beaten egg white while someone else beats the mixture.
Continue beating for 2 to 3 minutes until thick and creamy.
Immediately pour the icing over the cake, as it will harden quickly once cooled.
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
- Granulated sugar
- Dissolves into the syrup to form the sweet base of the icing.
- Egg white
- Whips with the hot syrup to create a light, thick, creamy structure.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can be boiled into a syrup.
The step that matters
Pouring the hot syrup into the egg white. Hot syrup poured in while the egg white is being beaten cooks and thickens the egg white into a stable foam. Beating must continue during the pour so the syrup disperses evenly rather than clumping or scrambling the egg.
“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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