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Dessert

Macaroons

A sweet almond cookie made by mixing ground almonds, sugar, and stiff egg whites, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Macaroons

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 ↓

Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds, wash, and dry them in a towel.

  2. Chop the almonds very finely and spread them out on a dish to dry for 2-3 days.

  3. Spread a sheet of paper on an oven tin without greasing it.

  4. Pound the almonds.

Shape and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites very stiffly and mix in the pounded almonds and sugar quickly.

  2. Drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto the paper, spaced apart.

  3. Lightly touch the tops with a wet brush and place a strip of blanched almond on each.

  4. Bake in a slow oven (300°F/150°C) until hard.

  5. Remove the paper from the tin, turn it upside down, and wet the back of each biscuit with cold water to release them.

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

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 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

Almonds
Form the bulk of the biscuit, giving body and a rich, nutty flavour.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the biscuits and adds structure as it dissolves into the mixture.
Egg whites
Whipped stiff to lighten the mixture and give the biscuits their airy, set structure.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites very stiffly and mix quickly. Stiffly beaten whites trap air that lifts the mixture; overmixing or letting the whites deflate will make the macaroons dense and flat.

Swap the almond

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

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

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.

More macaroons recipes

Almond 89Coconut 62Chocolate 43Oatmeal 33Hickory Nut 16Peanut 11 See all 48 →

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