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Dessert

Almond Macaroons

Almond macaroons are sweet confections made from almonds, lemon essence, powdered sugar, and egg whites, baked into small balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Pour boiling water over the almonds, remove the skins, and soak in cold water for a few moments.

  2. Pound the almonds with lemon essence until smooth.

Make the dough

  1. Mix in the powdered sugar and egg whites, working the paste well with the back of a spoon.

  2. Dip your hands in water and roll the mixture into balls the size of a nutmeg.

  3. Place the balls on buttered paper, an inch apart.

  4. Smooth the surface of the macaroons with wet hands.

Bake

  1. Bake in a cool oven (300°F / 150°C) for 45 minutes.

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 + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the macaroons.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the paste and helps it hold together as it dries and bakes.
Egg whites
Bind the paste and set during baking to give the macaroons their structure.

The step that matters

Working the paste with the spoon. Thoroughly working the almonds, sugar and egg whites into a smooth, even paste matters because lumps or uneven mixing lead to inconsistent texture and spreading in the oven.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pistachiofits about as well
  2. Milletfits about as well
  3. Almondthe original
  4. Chickpeafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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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