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Dessert

Almond Macaroons

Almond macaroons are sweet biscuits made from powdered sugar, blanched almonds, rose water, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Sift the powdered sugar into a bowl.

  2. In a mortar, beat the blanched almonds with a few drops of rose-water until a paste forms.

  3. Mix the almond paste with the beaten egg whites until well combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Take a small amount of the mixture, about the size of a cherry, and shape it in your palm, dusting with flour as needed.

  2. Grease sheets of parchment paper with butter and place the macaroons on it, leaving space between each.

  3. Sprinkle a little powdered sugar over the macaroons before baking.

  4. Bake in a quick oven at 400°F (200°C) until they are a delicate color.

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 + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 sweet almonds
Provide the main body of the macaroons as a paste that sets the texture.
White powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the macaroons brown as they bake.
Egg whites
Give structure and lightness, holding the almond paste together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until a delicate color. Baking too long dries the macaroons and darkens them, while too little leaves them soft and underset. Watch the color rather than the clock, as the sugar browns quickly in a hot oven.

“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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