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Dessert

Coco an Ut Macaroons

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg 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 ↓

Coco an Ut Macaroons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil sugar and water together until it reaches a candy stage.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the crystallized coconut.

Shape and bake

  1. Gradually add the beaten egg whites, mixing thoroughly with a spoon.

  2. Drop and spread small cakes on buttered baking sheets.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until slightly browned.

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. Sugar + eggtop 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. Coconut + eggtop 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

White sugar
Sweetens the macaroons and, boiled with water, forms the syrup that binds the coconut.
Crystallized coconut
Provides the main body, chew, and coconut flavour of the macaroons.
Egg whites
Add structure and help the mixture set and hold its shape as it bakes.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar and water to candy stage. Boiling the syrup to the right concentration controls how much moisture remains. Too little cooking leaves the cakes soft and loose, while overcooking makes them dry and hard once baked.

Swap the coconut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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