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Dessert

Scotch Macaroons

A sweet biscuit made with sugar, eggs, oats, baking powder, peanuts, butter, and almond flavoring, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Peanut and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry acetylpyrazine, which smells roast. The science ↓

Scotch Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make and shape the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, eggs, oats, baking powder, chopped peanuts, salt, butter, and almond flavoring until well combined.

  2. Form the mixture into small balls.

Bake

  1. Place the balls on buttered baking sheets.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

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. Peanut + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

  2. Oats + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together552 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Oats + peanuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together368 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Oats + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture together and add structure as they set in the oven.
Rolled oats
Provide the bulk and chewy texture of the macaroons.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the mixture so it bakes lighter.
Chopped peanuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavor throughout the macaroons.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness in the finished cookies.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Baking only until golden brown keeps the macaroons moist inside while the surface sets and browns. Overbaking dries the oats and makes them hard.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Flaxseedfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, oats, butter, almond. 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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