Skip to main content
Dessert

Very Fine Cocoa-nut Macaroons

A sweet biscuit made with cocoa-nut, sugar, eggs, butter, flour, currants, candied orange peel, and lemon rind, baked gently.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Very Fine Cocoa-nut Macaroons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coconut

  1. Rasp a fresh cocoa-nut and spread it on a dish or tin.

  2. Let it dry gradually for a couple of days, if convenient.

Make and bake the macaroons

  1. Add to it double its weight of fine sifted sugar and the whites of eight eggs beaten to a solid froth, to the pound.

  2. Roll the mixture into small balls.

  3. Place the balls on a buttered tin.

  4. Bake them in a very gentle oven for about twenty minutes.

  5. Move them from the tin while they are warm.

  6. Store them in a very dry canister as soon as they are cold.

Make the currant paste

  1. Work into a pound of flour six ounces of butter, and mix well with them half a pound of sifted sugar, six ounces of currants, two ounces of candied orange-peel, the grated rind of a lemon, and four well-beaten eggs.

  2. Flour a tin lightly, and with a couple of forks place the paste upon it in small rough heaps quite two inches apart.

  3. Bake them in a very gentle oven from a quarter of an hour to twenty minutes, or until they are equally coloured to a pale brown.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

758Calories
20 gProtein
18 gFat
128 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Currant + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cocoa-nut (in the method)
Provides the main flavour and the chewy, moist body of the macaroons.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps bind it while baking, giving a crisp outer surface.
Eggs
Whites beaten to a froth lighten the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the paste a tender crumb.
Flour
Gives the currant paste structure so the heaps hold their shape while baking.
Currants
Add sweetness, moisture and small pockets of fruit flavour.

The step that matters

Baking in a very gentle oven. Low, gentle heat dries the outside slowly so the macaroons set without spreading or browning too fast. Too hot an oven scorches the sugar before the centre cooks through.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, orange, flour, sugar, egg, 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