Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Icing for Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine sugar and cream of tartar in a saucepan.
Add enough water to dissolve the sugar and boil until it reaches a rope consistency.
Thicken and finish
Remove from heat and beat the mixture against the side of the pan until it becomes white and thick.
If the icing is too thick, add a little water and melt it on the stove.
Add any desired flavoring, such as vanilla, raspberry, or chocolate.
When the icing is thin, pour it over the cake and let it stand to harden.
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 + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Granulated sugar
- Forms the syrup base and, once beaten, the sweet, set body of the icing.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidity that helps keep the sugar syrup smooth and prevents grainy crystals.
The step that matters
Beating the mixture against the side of the pan. Beating cools and agitates the syrup so sugar forms fine crystals, turning it white and thick. Beating too early or too little leaves the icing runny 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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