Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Icing for Cakes

A sweet almond icing made with sugar, ground almonds, eggs, and rose or orange-flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and rose are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,465 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Icing for Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Weigh the castor sugar and ground almonds into a clean bowl and mix well.

  2. Make a hole in the center, break in the eggs, and add a little rose or orange-flower water.

  3. Mix into a firm paste, using another egg if necessary.

Shape and place

  1. Turn the mixture onto a surface dusted with sugar to prevent sticking.

  2. Roll out with a rolling pin to the size of the cake.

  3. Place it on top of the cake and press smooth with your hand.

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. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

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

  5. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Castor sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, and helps the paste hold together.
Ground sweet almonds
Form the body of the paste and give it its nutty almond flavor.
Eggs
Bind the almonds and sugar into a paste that can be rolled out.

The step that matters

Mix into a firm paste, using another egg if necessary.. The paste must be firm enough to roll without sticking or tearing. Too much egg makes it soft and sticky, so add extra egg only a little at a time.

“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.

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes