Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Macaroons

A sweet cookie made from ground almonds, sugar, egg whites, chocolate, and vanilla, baked into small balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chocolate Macaroons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the mixture

  1. Pound the sugar and ground almonds together with the vanilla extract.

  2. Add the egg whites one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Shape and bake

  1. Form the mixture into balls, flatten them slightly, and place on wafer paper.

  2. Top each macaroon with half a blanched almond.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 25 minutes.

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 + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Ground almonds
Provide the bulk and nutty flavour of the macaroon.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the macaroons a crisp, set surface.
Egg whites
Bind the mixture and provide structure as they set in the oven.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and richness to the macaroons.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites one at a time. Adding egg whites gradually and mixing well after each addition lets the mixture combine evenly into a smooth, cohesive paste, so the macaroons bake with consistent texture instead of becoming greasy or loose.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, chocolate, vanilla. 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

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes