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Dessert

Almond Macaroons

Almond macaroons are sweet cookies made from almond paste, egg whites, and sugar, baked until pale brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 very cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very cool oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds.

  2. Dry the almonds.

  3. Place the almonds in a cool oven to dry completely.

  4. Pound the almonds into a smooth paste, adding a little egg white as needed.

Make the meringue

  1. Whisk the egg whites until firm.

  2. Gradually mix the sugar into the egg whites.

  3. Combine the almond paste with the egg white mixture and mix well.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto wafer paper.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until pale brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.

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. Egg + sugartop 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

Almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the macaroons as a fine paste.
Egg whites
Whipped to form a foam that gives the macaroons their light structure.
Sugar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites and adds sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Drying the almonds completely. Any leftover moisture in the almonds makes the paste wet and weakens the structure, so the macaroons can spread or turn out dense. Drying in a cool oven removes that moisture before pounding.

Swap the almond

The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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