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Dessert

Macarons Au Chocolat

Chocolate macarons made with ground almonds, powdered sugar, melted chocolate, and egg whites, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,733 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Macarons Au Chocolat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Blanch and grind the almonds.

  2. Melt the chocolate in a warm oven until soft.

Make the dough

  1. Mix the ground almonds with the powdered sugar and melted chocolate.

  2. Add egg whites to form a soft dough that holds its shape.

Bake

  1. Pipe the mixture onto parchment paper.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Chocolate + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Provide the main structure and body of the shell.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the shells a smooth, fine surface.
Chocolate bars
Add flavor and fat, giving the dough richness and a softer texture.
Egg whites
Bind the dough and provide the moisture and structure that set in the oven.

The step that matters

Add egg whites to form a soft dough. Too much or too little egg white changes the dough's moisture. A dough that is too wet spreads flat, while one that is too dry cracks and fails to form smooth shells.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Peanutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, chocolate, 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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