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Dessert

Date Macaroons

A sweet biscuit made with dates, almonds, sugar, and beaten egg whites, baked until dry.

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 very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Stone the dates, then weigh and chop them finely.

  2. Cut the almonds lengthwise into slices, but do not blanch them.

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the egg whites until foamy, then add the sugar and beat until stiff.

  2. Add the chopped dates and almonds, and mix thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Drop the mixture by teaspoonfuls onto baking sheets, placing them ½ inch apart.

  2. Bake for 50 minutes in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) or until dry.

  3. They are done when they leave the pan easily.

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

Dates
Provide sweetness, moisture and chewy body to the macaroons.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they give the macaroons their airy structure.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavour, and bulk to the mixture.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the mixture and stabilises the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Baking until dry. Baking slowly at a low temperature dries the macaroons through without over-browning them. Pulling them too early leaves them sticky in the centre, since the sugar and dates hold moisture.

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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