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Dessert

Dutch Macaroons

A sweet biscuit made from ground almonds, sugar, egg whites, spices, dried cherries, and green angelica, baked until done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and angelica share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Dutch 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 the mixture

  1. Pound the ground almonds with the egg whites.

  2. Add the sifted sugar, coriander seeds, and ground cloves.

Shape and rest

  1. Shape the mixture into small fingers on a sheet of wafer.

  2. Let them sit in a warm place overnight.

  3. Press the back of a knife down the center of each macaroon.

Decorate and bake

  1. On half of the macaroons, place a row of dried cherries.

  2. On the other half, insert a stripe of green angelica.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Coriander + angelicatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Clove + angelicatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together84 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Almond + angelicatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Coriander + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + coriandertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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 nutty flavor of the macaroons.
Egg whites
Bind the almonds and sugar into a paste and add structure as they set in the oven.
Sifted sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the macaroons brown and firm up as they bake.

The step that matters

Resting the shaped macaroons overnight in a warm place. Resting lets the surface dry slightly so the macaroons hold their shape and form a skin in the oven, instead of spreading or cracking.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

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