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Dessert

Cocoanut Macaroons

A sweet treat made from grated coconut, powdered sugar, cream, and egg whites, baked into bite‑size cookies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Cocoanut Macaroons

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cocoanut Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Mix the dough

  1. Stir the grated coconut with powdered sugar and enough cream to moisten it.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites and mix thoroughly.

Shape and bake

  1. Line a baking pan with buttered paper.

  2. Drop the coconut mixture by teaspoonfuls onto the paper.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

Finish

  1. Sift powdered sugar over the macaroons while they are still warm.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Coconut + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,223 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Coconut + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

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

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Grated coconut
Provides the bulk and chewy texture of the macaroons.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Cream
Moistens the coconut so the mixture holds together when shaped.
Egg whites
Bind the mixture and help the macaroons set as they bake.

The step that matters

Moisten the coconut with just enough cream. Too little cream leaves the coconut dry and crumbly, so the mounds will not hold their shape. Too much makes the mixture slack, so the macaroons spread and bake up dense.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, egg. 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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