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Dessert

Spice Macaroons

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 350°F (175°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 silk sieve before adding to the mixture.

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.

Shape and bake

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

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

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 of the macaroons, giving a moist, chewy base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mounds set and brown in the oven.
Egg whites
Bind the mixture and give structure and lift to the mounds.
Cinnamon
Adds warm spiced aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Mixing the dough until well combined. Ground almonds, sugar and egg whites must be evenly blended so the mounds bake uniformly and hold their shape instead of spreading unevenly.

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.

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