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Dessert

Almond Macaroons

A sweet almond-based confection made by blending blanched almonds, sugar, and egg whites, shaped into balls, and baked until light brown.

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

Almond Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the paste

  1. Blanch the almonds and pound them into a paste.

  2. Add the sugar and beaten egg whites to the almond paste.

  3. Mix everything together with the back of a spoon.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the mixture into balls about the size of a nutmeg.

  2. Dust sugar over the top of each ball.

  3. Place them on a sheet of paper at least 1 inch apart.

  4. Bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) until light brown.

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 + sugartop 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

Sweet almonds
Form the bulk of the paste, giving the macaroons their dense, chewy body and nutty flavour.
Egg whites
Bind the almond paste and lighten it, helping the balls hold their shape while baking.
White sugar
Sweetens the macaroons and helps the surface brown during baking.

The step that matters

Bake in a cool oven until light brown. A low oven dries the outside gently while keeping the inside soft and chewy. Baking too long or too hot browns the surface quickly and leaves the macaroons dry and hard.

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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