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Dessert

Date Macaroons

A sweet cookie made with dates, almonds, egg whites, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and almond work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 217 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Date Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add the sugar to the egg whites while beating.

  3. Fold in the chopped dates and almonds.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto buttered paper.

  2. Bake until 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. Dates + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Dates + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together985 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Dates + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the macaroons their light, airy structure.
Granulated sugar
Added to the whipped whites to stabilise the foam and add sweetness.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness, giving the macaroons a chewy texture.
Almonds
Add body and a nutty flavour, holding the mixture together with the dates.

The step that matters

Gradually add the sugar to the egg whites while beating. Adding sugar slowly while beating helps dissolve it and build a stable, glossy foam. Dumping it in at once can deflate the whites and weaken the structure that holds the macaroons together.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, egg, sugar. 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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