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Dessert

Cocoanut Macaroons

A sweet treat made from egg whites, powdered sugar, and desiccated coconut baked until light brown.

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

Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cocoanut Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites until very stiff.

  2. Sift in the powdered sugar and mix well.

  3. Add the desiccated coconut and combine.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto sheets of rice or wafer paper.

  2. 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.

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

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

  2. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

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

  3. Egg + coconuttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Desiccated coconut
Forms the bulk of the macaroon and provides chewy texture and coconut flavour.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until very stiff. Stiff egg whites hold air bubbles that lift and lighten the mixture. Under-beaten whites collapse when the sugar and coconut are folded in, leaving dense, flat macaroons.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

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.

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