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Dessert

Bitter Macaroons

A sweet treat made from bitter almonds, sugar, and egg whites, formed into small lumps and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and almond 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 ↓

Bitter Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch and dry the almonds.

Make the paste

  1. Pound the almonds in a mortar with the egg whites gradually to prevent oil separation.

  2. Mix in the sifted sugar and additional egg whites as needed to achieve the right paste consistency.

Shape and bake

  1. Wet your fingers with water to prevent sticking.

  2. Drop the mixture in small lumps onto a baking sheet.

  3. Lightly touch the tops with wet fingers to make them shine.

  4. Test the heat with a couple of macaroons first.

  5. Bake in a slack oven.

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. Sugar + almondtop 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

Bitter almonds
Provide the main flavour and the bulk of the paste.
Egg whites
Bind the ground almonds into a paste that holds its shape.
Sugar
Sweetens the macaroons and helps give them a crisp, set surface.

The step that matters

Pounding the almonds with the egg whites. Adding the egg whites gradually keeps the almond oil emulsified in the paste. Adding them too fast can make the oil separate, leaving a greasy, poorly held mixture.

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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