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Dessert

Chocolate Macaroons

Chocolate macaroons made with melted chocolate, powdered sugar, egg whites, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chocolate Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the paste

  1. Melt the chocolate in a pan over low heat.

  2. Mix the melted chocolate with powdered sugar and egg whites to form a thick paste.

  3. Roll the mixture to about ¼ inch thick.

  4. Cut into small round pieces using a cutter.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a pan and dust it with equal parts flour and sugar.

  2. Place the cut pieces on the prepared pan.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chocolate + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provide structure and lightness, helping the paste hold its shape and set in the oven.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and bulk, giving the paste body so it can be rolled and cut.
Plain chocolate
Adds rich flavour and fat, and helps firm the paste as it cools and sets.

The step that matters

Rolling and cutting the paste. The paste is thick and sticky, so rolling it to an even thickness keeps the pieces uniform and lets them bake evenly. Uneven pieces will set at different rates and can dry out or brown unevenly.

“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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