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Macaroons

A sweet almond-based treat made by baking a paste of almonds, sugar, and egg white.

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

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 ↓

Macaroons

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds.

  2. Pound the almonds in a mortar, adding sugar gradually until a smooth paste forms.

  3. Whisk the egg white to stiff peaks and mix it with the almond paste and sugar.

Bake and dry

  1. Flour a baking tin and line it with wafer paper.

  2. Drop small pieces of the mixture onto the wafer paper, spaced evenly.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 10 minutes or until crisp and golden.

  4. Cut around the wafer paper with a knife and place the macaroons on a sieve to dry.

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

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty almond flavour of the macaroons.
Bitter almonds
Add a deeper, more pronounced almond aroma to the paste.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the paste and helps it bind into a smooth mass when pounded.
Egg white
Whisked to stiff peaks, it gives the mixture lift and a light, crisp structure when baked.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg white to stiff peaks. Stiff peaks trap air that expands in the oven and sets the proteins, giving the macaroons a light structure. Under-whipped whites spread and bake flat and dense, while over-whipped whites turn grainy and collapse.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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