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Dessert

Chocolate Macaroons

A sweet baked treat made from ground almonds, sugar, chocolate, vanilla sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chocolate Macaroons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

Make and shape the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the ground almonds, sifted sugar, grated chocolate, vanilla sugar, and egg whites until a stiff paste forms.

  2. Spoon the mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, shaping them into short fingers.

Bake

  1. 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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Ground almonds
Provide the main body and structure of the macaroons.
Egg whites
Bind the paste together and help the macaroons set as they bake.
Sifted sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the paste hold its shape.
Grated french chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and richness to the macaroons.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites into a stiff paste. The paste must be stiff enough to hold its shape when piped or spooned. Too much liquid from the whites makes the macaroons spread and bake flat, while a dry mix may crack.

Swap the almond

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, chocolate, vanilla, 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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