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Frosting for Above

A sweet frosting made with sugar, water, egg white, raisins, figs, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and fig work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 737 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Frosting for Above

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar and water.

  2. Boil for 7 minutes.

  3. While boiling, beat the egg white until stiff.

  4. Pour the boiled sugar over the egg white in a fine stream, beating continuously.

  5. Once stiff, fold in the raisins, figs, and nuts.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Spread a layer of frosting between cake layers and on top.

  2. Reserve some fruit to decorate the top of the frosting.

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. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Fig + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves and boils into a syrup that sets with the egg white to form the frosting.
Egg white
Whipped to stiff foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness to the frosting.
Figs
Add chewy texture and sweetness to the frosting.

The step that matters

Pour the boiled sugar in a fine stream while beating. Pouring the hot syrup slowly while beating keeps it from scrambling the egg white and lets it cook the foam evenly, producing a smooth, stable frosting.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, raisin, fig. 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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