Skip to main content
Dessert

Bitter Macaroons Macarons d’Amandes Ameres

A sweet biscuit made from bitter almonds, egg whites, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Bitter Macaroons Macarons d’Amandes Ameres

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the almond paste

  1. Dry the skinned bitter almonds in the oven.

  2. In a mortar, beat the almonds with 3 egg whites until very fine. If the mixture is too dry, add a fourth egg white.

  3. Mix the almond mixture with the sifted sugar in a basin.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop the mixture from a knife onto paper in nut-sized portions.

  2. Bake in a very slow oven (300°F / 150°C).

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. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Bitter almonds
Provide the main flavour and the bulk of the dough.
Egg whites
Bind the ground almonds into a paste that holds its shape.
Sifted sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the macaroons set and brown as they bake.

The step that matters

Beating the almonds until very fine. Almonds must be finely broken down so the paste is smooth and bakes evenly. Coarse pieces make the macaroons crumbly and uneven. Adding a fourth egg white only if the mixture is too dry keeps the paste soft enough to drop cleanly.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

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.

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes