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Dessert

Cocoa Icing

A frosting made by mixing boiled sugar, beaten egg whites, and grated coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg 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 ↓

Cocoa Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the icing

  1. Boil the sugar in a saucepan until it reaches a candy stage.

  2. Beat the egg whites in a bowl until stiff peaks form.

  3. Grate the coconut and add it to the egg whites.

  4. Pour the hot sugar mixture over the egg whites and coconut.

Ice the cake

  1. Beat the mixture well and spread it on the cake quickly.

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

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

  2. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

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

  3. Egg + coconuttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Provides sweetness and, boiled to candy stage, sets firmly as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the icing a light, fluffy structure.
Grated coconut
Adds chewy texture and a sweet, toasty coconut flavor.

The step that matters

Spread the icing quickly. Hot sugar syrup firms as it cools and loses its ability to spread. Beating well and spreading straight away keeps the icing smooth and workable before it sets.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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