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Dessert

Italian Macaroons

A sweet almond-based confection made with egg whites and sugar, baked into small mounds topped with almond slips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Italian Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the mixture

  1. Pound the blanched almonds finely with 4 egg whites.

  2. Add 2 ½ pounds of sugar and mix well.

  3. Gradually incorporate 10 or 11 more egg whites, mixing thoroughly.

  4. To test lightness, bake a small sample; if heavy, add more beaten egg whites.

Shape and bake

  1. Use a biscuit funnel to pipe the mixture onto wafer paper, forming small walnut-sized mounds.

  2. Top each mound with 3 or 4 pieces of blanched almond slips.

  3. Place on baking sheets or wires and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

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

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 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

Blanched almonds
Provide the bulk and nutty flavour of the macaroon base.
Egg whites
Provide structure and lightness by trapping air, so the mixture rises and sets in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mounds set and brown while baking.

The step that matters

Testing lightness with a sample bake. Egg whites trap air and give the macaroons their lift. If the mixture is too heavy, the mounds will spread or bake dense, so a small test bake shows whether more beaten whites are needed before piping the whole batch.

Swap the almond

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

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

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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