Why it works: Egg and sugar 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 ↓
Cake Icing
Ingredients
Directions
In a saucepan, pour boiling water over the sugar and boil until it reaches a nearly candied state.
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Pour the boiled sugar mixture into the beaten egg whites and continue to beat until it forms a stiff cream.
Add flavoring to taste.
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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Egg + sugartop 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
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that gives the icing its light, stiff structure.
- Sugar
- Dissolved and boiled to a syrup that sets and sweetens the icing as it cools.
The step that matters
Pouring the hot sugar syrup into the egg whites. Pouring while the whites are beaten to stiff peaks and keeping the beater running lets the hot syrup cook and stabilize the foam. Pouring too early or stopping the beating can leave the icing loose or grainy.
“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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