Skip to main content
Dessert

Spice Macaroons

A sweet almond-based cookie flavored with cinnamon, cloves, orange peel, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spice Macaroons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Grind the sweet almonds finely.

  2. Pound the spices and sift them through a fine sieve.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine the ground almonds, sugar, egg whites, cinnamon, cloves, and the orange and lemon peels.

  2. Mix all ingredients thoroughly until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Shape the mixture into small mounds on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until lightly golden.

  3. Allow to cool before serving.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the cookie.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mounds set and brown in the oven.
Egg whites
Bind the ground almonds and give the mounds structure as they bake.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Cloves
Adds a strong, aromatic spice note.

The step that matters

Mixing until well combined. The egg whites and sugar must be evenly distributed through the almond paste; uneven mixing leaves dry pockets and patchy spread and browning in the baked mounds.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, sugar, egg, cinnamon, orange, lemon):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, egg, cinnamon, orange, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes