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Dessert

Cocoanut Macaroons

A sweet treat made from egg whites, powdered sugar, and shredded coconut, baked into small cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Cocoanut Macaroons

Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cocoanut Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites until light but not stiff.

  2. Gradually add 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar while beating continuously until stiff.

  3. Fold in the remaining powdered sugar gradually.

  4. Carefully fold in the shredded coconut.

Bake

  1. Prepare a large flat pan lined with ungreased parchment paper.

  2. Drop the mixture in tiny cakes on the paper, about 1 inch apart.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 18 minutes.

  4. Prepare a cup of cold water and a pastry brush.

  5. One minute after removing from the oven, lift the paper carefully and place it on a flat surface with the paper side up.

  6. Brush the surface lightly with cold water twice.

  7. Carefully remove the macaroons and allow them to cool bottom side up.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

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

  3. Egg + coconuttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they give the macaroons their light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites as it is added gradually.
Shredded or grated coconut
Adds chewy texture and coconut flavour to the cookies.

The step that matters

Folding in the coconut. Folding gently keeps the air whipped into the egg whites. Overmixing deflates the foam, so the macaroons bake up flatter and denser.

Swap the coconut

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

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

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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