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Dessert

Macaroon Cakes

A sweet baked cake made with flour, butter, eggs, sugar, cream, baking soda, cream of tartar, and bitter almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Macaroon Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Rub the butter into the sifted flour.

Make the dough

  1. Whip the beaten eggs together and add to the mixture.

  2. Stir in the sugar, cream, baking soda, cream of tartar, and bitter almond extract.

Shape and bake

  1. Sprinkle sugar on a board and pinch off small pieces of dough.

  2. Roll each piece on the board, then into the sugar.

  3. Form each piece into a ring and place on well-buttered pans.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven 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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the cakes together.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the dough.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown to a golden color.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough and works with baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas that lightens the texture.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Baking soda and cream of tartar need a hot, steady oven to react and set the rings. Pulling them too early leaves them pale and dense, while overbaking dries them out.

“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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