Skip to main content
Dessert

Cooked Icing

A sweet icing made by cooking sugar with water, then folding in beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Coffee and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,344 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cooked Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine white sugar and boiling water in a saucepan.

  2. Stir until dissolved and boil until it reaches the candy stage.

Finish the icing

  1. Beat the egg whites until very light.

  2. Gradually pour the hot candy over the beaten egg whites while mixing.

  3. Beat well, add flavoring, and spread between cake layers while warm.

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. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Coffee + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,239 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

White sugar
Dissolves into the boiling water to form a syrup that sets into a glossy, sweet icing.
Egg whites
Beaten into foam, they give the icing its light, airy texture and body.
Boiling water
Dissolves the sugar and carries it to the candy stage.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot candy over the egg whites. Pour the syrup slowly while beating constantly. Pouring too fast can deflate the foam or let the syrup harden in lumps, and beating keeps the sugar evenly distributed so the icing stays smooth and spreadable.

“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

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipesCoffee Bavarian CreamCoffee Bavarian Cream14 recipes