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Dessert

Boiled Icing

A boiled vanilla icing made from sugar, water, egg whites, and vanilla extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Boiled Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine the sugar and cold water in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Boil without stirring until the mixture can spin a thread when dropped from a spoon.

Finish the icing

  1. Remove from heat and pour in a thin stream over the beaten egg whites.

  2. Beat continuously until the mixture is cold and thick.

  3. Stir in the vanilla extract and use immediately.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 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. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness and, when boiled, a syrup that sets into a glossy, firm icing.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma and flavour to the finished icing.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup over the egg whites. Pour the syrup in a thin stream while beating. Hot syrup cooks and stabilizes the egg white foam, but a fast pour or pause in beating can deflate the foam or leave streaks of syrup.

“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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