Skip to main content
Dessert

Spanish Macaroons

A sweet almond-based cookie flavored with cinnamon and orange rind.

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

Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Spanish Macaroons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the almond mixture

  1. Boil the sugar until it reaches the bloom degree.

  2. Add the ground almonds and cinnamon, and simmer gently over low heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. After 10 minutes, add the egg yolks and stir over medium heat until the mixture is firm and compact.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

Shape and bake

  1. Once cooled, lightly grease your hands with almond oil and roll the mixture into small balls.

  2. Place the balls on baking sheets lined with wafer paper.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the dough-like mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, once boiled, helps the mixture hold together as it cools.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and set it firm when gently heated.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spice to the macaroons.
Orange rind
Adds bright citrus aroma that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolks over medium heat. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set, but if they get too hot or are left unstirred they can scramble or curdle. Constant stirring keeps the heat even so the mixture becomes firm and smooth.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, egg, 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes