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Dessert

Lemon Icing

A powdered sugar icing flavored with lemon juice and rose water, thickened with gum arabic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rose and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,174 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Lemon Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the icing

  1. Whisk the egg whites until well beaten.

  2. Add the rose water and lemon juice to the egg whites and mix well.

  3. Gradually add the powdered sugar, mixing until combined.

Spread and set

  1. Spread the icing on the cake using a knife.

  2. If the icing does not harden, return the cake to the oven briefly, ensuring it does not brown.

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. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the icing its light structure and body.
Powdered sugar
Provides the sweetness and the bulk that thickens the icing into a spreadable paste.
Gum arabic
Acts as a stabilizer that helps the icing stay smooth and hold its shape.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Rose water
Contributes a floral aroma to the icing.

The step that matters

Returning the cake to the oven. Gentle heat sets the egg white and sugar mixture so it hardens. Too much heat or time drives browning of the sugar and proteins, which spoils the pale, smooth finish, so the cake should be checked often.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Raisinfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, rose. 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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