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Creme De Macarons

A liqueur made from bitter almonds, spices, brandy, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Creme De Macarons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bruise the cinnamon, cloves, and mace together.

  2. Blanch the bitter almonds and beat them to a pulp.

Infuse

  1. Combine the bruised spices and almond pulp in a gallon of brandy and let it stand for a week.

  2. Strain the mixture through flannel.

Sweeten and bottle

  1. Dissolve the sugar in half a gallon of water and add it to the brandy mixture.

  2. Bottle the final mixture.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Bitter almonds
Provide the characteristic almond flavour once beaten into a pulp and steeped in the brandy.
Brandy
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the spices and almonds, and preserves the liqueur.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the strong spice and almond flavours.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, woody aroma to the infused spirit.
Cloves
Contribute pungent, warm aroma to the infused spirit.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture stand for a week. Flavour is extracted slowly from the bruised spices and almond pulp into the alcohol. Cutting this infusion short leaves the liqueur weak and under-flavoured.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, clove, almond, brandy, sugar):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, clove, almond, brandy, 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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