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 ↓
Cream for French Candies
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cream
In a bowl, combine the egg white and an equal amount of water.
Stir in confectioner's sugar until the mixture is too thick to stir.
Take small pieces of the mixture and knead them in more confectioner's sugar, similar to making biscuit dough.
Shape
Shape the mixture into balls for chocolate creams, over almonds, or any desired form.
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 white
- Provides the binding base that the sugar thickens into a pliable paste.
- Confectioner's sugar
- Thickens the liquid and sets the mixture into a firm, sweet, kneadable dough.
The step that matters
Kneading in confectioner's sugar. Sugar must be worked in gradually. Adding too much at once can make the paste dry and crumbly, while too little leaves it sticky and hard to shape.
“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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