Name: Baking for Others: Cookie Giveaway – Part 3 of 3
Ingredients: Using Lida’s restrictions as well as her taste for chocolate and coconut, we turned to these airy yet chewy, gluten-free cookies. Getting rid of ingredients from butter to flour to egg yolks rends these quite minimalist, though they don’t taste it. I first came across the recipe in; magazine last holiday season.; is not ordinarily a place I go to for cookie recipes, but since they were modified from a recipe by chocolatier Payard, I gave them a go. For Lida, I modified the flavors some, but the macaroon-like chocolate-sugar-egg white base is all Payard’s.; 1/2 cup walnut halves; 1/2 cup sliced almonds; 2/3 cup unsweetened coconut; 2 1/4 cups sugar*; 3 tablespoons cornstarch*; 1/4 cup plus 1 heaping tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder (I prefer natural but you can use Dutch process); large pinch salt; 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (optional); 3 large egg whites, at room temperature

Why it works: Walnut and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

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.

Walnut + almondtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together993 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Coconut + almondtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,093 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Coconut + walnuttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together606 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chocolate + almondtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,733 recipes

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

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

Swap the coconut

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits about as well
Coconutthe original
Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, butter, flour, egg, sugar, walnut, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Coconut	1/2 cup shredded (40g)	283
Chocolate	1 oz (28g) semisweet	155
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Walnut	1 walnut half (4g)	26
Almond	1 almond (1.2g)	7
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Baking for Others: Cookie Giveaway – Part 3 of 3