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Dessert

Light Macaroons

A sweet almond-based cookie made with sweet and bitter almonds, sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Light Macaroons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Cut the sweet almonds into small pieces.

  2. Soak the bitter almonds in water or moisten them with egg whites.

  3. Sift 1½ pounds of sugar over the almonds through a fine sieve.

  4. Brown the almonds in a gentle oven until they are a clear color.

Shape and finish

  1. Mix the browned almonds with the remaining sugar and 3 egg whites until the mixture can drop from a spoon.

  2. Wet your hands and lightly touch the tops of the mixture to make them shine.

  3. Once cooled, remove the macaroons from the paper.

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

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

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

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

  3. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 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 flavor of the macaroons.
Bitter almonds
Add a deeper, more aromatic almond flavor to the macaroons.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture set and brown.
Egg whites
Bind the almonds and sugar into a mixture that holds its shape.

The step that matters

Browning the almonds in a gentle oven. Almonds must be browned gently until they just change color; too much heat scorches their flavor and darkens the macaroons, while too little leaves them raw-tasting and without the deeper aroma that browning develops.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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