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Dessert

Almond Macaroons

A sweet treat made from blanched almonds, rose water, egg whites, sugar, and flour, baked until hard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Macaroons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Dry and pound the almonds to a paste.

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, one teaspoon at a time, while continuing to beat.

  3. Fold in the pounded almonds and rose water.

  4. If the mixture is too soft, add the flour.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the mixture and cut with a small cake cutter.

  2. Place the cutouts on buttered paper, spaced apart.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 45 minutes or until hard and dry.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Blanched almonds
Provide the bulk and nutty flavor of the macaroons as a fine paste.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they give the mixture its airy structure and help it set when baked.
White granulated sugar
Stabilizes the whipped whites and adds sweetness, helping the surface dry and brown.
All-purpose flour
Adds body to a soft mixture so the cutouts hold their shape.

The step that matters

Gradually add the sugar while beating. Adding sugar slowly lets it dissolve into the egg whites, creating a stable foam. Dumping it in at once can collapse the foam and leave the macaroons dense or weepy.

“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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