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Dessert

Oatmeal Macaroons

A baked treat made from butter, sugar, eggs, oats, baking powder, salt, vanilla, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Oatmeal Macaroons

Why it works: Oats and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,532 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Oatmeal Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar.

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs and mix with half of the sugar.

  3. Stir in the rolled oats, baking powder, and salt.

  4. Add the vanilla extract and fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto a buttered baking sheet, spacing them three inches apart.

  2. Bake until lightly golden.

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. Oats + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Butter + oatstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten it and help the cookies rise.
Rolled oats
Provide the chewy, hearty bulk that gives the macaroons their texture.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown lightly in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the macaroons lift and spread lightly.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites intact. Stirring vigorously deflates them, leaving dense rather than light macaroons.

“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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