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Dessert

Cornflake Macaroons

A sweet treat made from cornflakes, nuts, butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon, fried and rolled in sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cornflake Macaroons

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter.

  2. Add the brown sugar and beaten egg until well combined.

  3. Stir in the milk, sifted flour, baking powder, and salt.

  4. Mix just until combined; add more flour if needed to make a stiff dough.

  5. Roll out half of the dough.

Shape and fry

  1. Cut with a doughnut cutter.

  2. Fry in deep fat at 355°F (180°C) until golden, turning only once.

  3. Drain on unglazed paper.

  4. Roll in fruit sugar.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff dough together as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the dough rises and turns lighter.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the dough tenderness and flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the surface brown.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and softens the dough.

The step that matters

Fry in deep fat at 355°F (180°C) until golden. Oil at the right temperature sets the outside quickly and browns it evenly. If the oil is too cool, the dough soaks up grease and turns heavy; if too hot, the outside darkens before the inside cooks through.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, cinnamon. 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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