Skip to main content
Dessert

Peanut Macaroons

A baked treat made from peanuts, powdered sugar, flour, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Peanut 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 batter

  1. Beat the egg whites until very stiff.

  2. Mix in the chopped peanuts, powdered sugar, and flour.

  3. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto buttered paper.

Bake

  1. Bake until light 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Peanut + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Peanut + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiffness, they trap air and give the macaroons their light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the whipped whites, helping the mixture hold together.
Chopped peanuts
Provide the main nutty flavor and body of the macaroons.
Flour
Adds a small amount of structure so the spoonfuls hold their shape while baking.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until very stiff. Whites that are only partly whipped won't hold air, so the macaroons will spread flat and turn out dense instead of light.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, 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.

You might also like

Peanut CandyPeanut Candy82 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes