Home › Cookery › Almond Macaroons
Almond Macaroons
One-half pound almonds, blanched and pounded, with a teaspoonful essence of lemon, till a smooth paste. Add an equal quantity of sifted white sugar and the whites of two eggs. Work well together with a spoon. Dip your hand into water and work them into balls the size of a nutmeg. Lay them on white paper an inch apart, then dip your hand in water and smooth them. Put them in a slow oven for three-quarters of an hour. Cocoanut may be used instead of almonds.--Mrs. M. G. H.
A straightforward almond paste macaroon of the older sort: no leavening, no whipped meringue, just ground nuts, sugar and raw white worked to a stiff dough. Most of the modern adjustments are about the almonds and the essence.
- Weights, not volumesHalf a pound of blanched almonds is 8 oz (225 g), and "an equal quantity" of sugar means 8 oz by weight as well, not by cup. That is roughly a 1:1 paste, which is why the mixture holds a ball rather than spreading.
- Pounding versus grindingA mortar bruises the almonds and releases oil, giving a genuine paste; a food processor tends to heat and pack them into a butter. Pulse the blanched nuts with a spoonful of the sugar to keep them from seizing, or start from 8 oz of almond flour and work in the sugar and whites.
- Essence of lemonIn this period the term generally meant oil of lemon dissolved in spirit, stronger than modern lemon extract. Use it sparingly, or substitute finely grated lemon zest; no exact equivalence can be given.
- Egg whitesTwo whites from modern large eggs come to roughly 60-70 g. Add the second white gradually and stop when the paste is stiff enough to roll; a wet dough will slump into flat discs.
- The size of a nutmegA small ball, under an inch across, giving several dozen macaroons from this quantity. The wetted hand is the trick for the smooth top, and it still works.
- Slow ovenConventionally somewhere in the range of 250-300F (120-150C). Three-quarters of an hour at that heat dries the macaroons through rather than browning them; they should be pale gold and firm at the edge, still slightly yielding in the centre.
- White paperParchment, and there is no need to grease it. Let the sheets cool completely before lifting; warm macaroons tear. If they stick, a brief flick of steam under the paper releases them, as cooks once did by damping the sheet.
- The coconut versionSubstituting coconut changes the moisture balance, and the mixture will need adjusting by feel to reach a rollable paste.
Macaroons of this kind reach back to the almond confectionery of medieval and Renaissance Italy, where sugar and pounded almonds were the foundation of the confectioner's craft; the name is generally traced through the Italian maccarone for a paste or dough. In a Virginia household book of the 1870s they sit among the small cakes served with wine or tea, and they require no leavening and no butter, both of which mattered in a kitchen without reliable baking powder or steady refrigeration. The offhand note that "cocoanut may be used instead of almonds" is worth pausing over: in 1877 coconut was as likely to be grated from a fresh nut as bought dried, commercial desiccated coconut in the United States dating from the 1880s and after. The attribution to Mrs. M. G. H. is typical of Housekeeping in Old Virginia, which Marion Cabell Tyree assembled in 1877 from recipes contributed by some 250 Virginia housekeepers.