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Dessert

Almond Macaroons

A sweet baked treat made from almond flour, sugar, egg whites, vanilla, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Macaroons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, mix almond flour, sugar, and salt.

  3. In another bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Make and bake

  1. Gently fold the egg whites into the almond mixture.

  2. Add vanilla extract and mix until combined.

  3. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

  4. Bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly golden.

  5. Let cool before serving.

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 + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Almond flour
Provides the bulk and nutty flavor of the cookies, forming their main structure.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give lift and a light, airy structure that holds the batter together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the almond mixture. Overmixing deflates the whipped egg whites and loses the air that gives the macaroons their lightness, so the fold should be gentle and stop once combined.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Macadamia nutfits less well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, vanilla. 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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