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Dessert

Chocolate Macaroons

A sweet treat made from chocolate, almonds, sugar, and egg white, baked until dry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chocolate Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Line a baking pan with white paper and butter it.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the chocolate and ground almonds together in a bowl.

  2. Stir in the sugar and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg white with 1 teaspoon of sugar until stiff peaks form, then fold it into the chocolate mixture.

  4. Add the vanilla, cinnamon, and corn starch, and stir until combined.

Bake

  1. Drop half a teaspoon of the mixture onto the paper, spacing them 1 inch apart.

  2. 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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the bulk of the macaroon structure and a nutty, tender base.
Egg white
Whipped to stiff peaks to lighten the batter and help it set in the oven.
White granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it dry and firm as it bakes.
Chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and color to the cookies.
Corn starch
Adds body and helps the macaroons keep their shape while baking.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped egg white into the chocolate mixture. Overmixing deflates the foam, so the macaroons spread flat and bake dense instead of staying light and set.

“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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