Name: Vienna Icing
Ingredients: 10 ounces icing sugar; ¼ pound butter; ⅓ cup mixed white rum; ⅓ cup maraschino

Why it works: Butter and rum are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,007 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Vienna Icing

Ingredients

10 ounces icing sugar
¼ pound butter
⅓ cup mixed white rum
⅓ cup maraschino

Directions

Combine icing sugar and butter in a bowl.
Mix with a wooden spoon until smooth.
Add mixed white rum and maraschino.
Stir until the mixture is creamy.
Flavor and color the icing as desired.

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.

Butter + rumtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,007 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,908 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Icing sugar: Supplies sweetness and, with the butter, the body of the icing.
Butter: Fat that makes the icing smooth and creamy in texture.
Mixed white rum: Adds liquid and a strong aroma that flavors the icing.
Maraschino: Adds liquid and a sweet, fruity aroma to the icing.

“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.