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Dessert

Chocolate Macaroons

Chocolate macaroons are small, sweet cookies made from chocolate, almonds, sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,733 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Whisk the egg whites until stiff.

Make the mixture

  1. Mix the chocolate, sugar, and ground almonds together.

  2. Gradually fold in the egg whites to form a stiff paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Place small heaps of the mixture on wafer paper.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until set.

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. Chocolate + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

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

  2. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Chocolate + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chocolate
Provides flavour and richness, with cocoa solids adding colour and depth to the shell.
Ground almonds
Adds body and a fine, tender texture to the paste.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they give the paste structure and lift as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the paste and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Adding the whisked egg whites gradually keeps their trapped air intact. Overmixing deflates the foam, so the heaps may spread flat or fail to set properly in the oven.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, 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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