No. 3382

Chocolate Macaroons with Nonpareil

Macarons au Chocolat a la Nonpareille

With one pound of pounded almonds, two and a quarter pounds of sugar and ten egg-whites make a smooth but not too fine paste; place it in a vessel, incorporating four ounces of cocoa softened in a mild oven; mix well, adding two or three egg-whites. Dress this paste on paper through a pocket furnished with a socket into small inch-diameter balls; dampen the surfaces with a wet cloth, then cover with white nonpareil, removing the surplus that has not adhered; put the sheet of paper on a baking sheet and cook these macaroons in a slack oven.

← No. 3381 Bitter Macaroons Fancy Cakes — Petits Fours No. 3383 Cream Macaroons in Cases →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's petits-fours formula written for a professional pastry department: the quantities fill sheet after sheet, and the method assumes a cooling brick oven. Both scale down without trouble.

Scale it down firstAs written this is 1 lb almonds, 2 1/4 lb sugar and 12-13 egg whites, which yields something on the order of 150 to 200 inch-wide macaroons. A quarter batch (4 oz almonds, 9 oz sugar, 3 whites plus a little extra) is a realistic home quantity.
Pounded almondsBlanched almonds ground in a mortar. Almond flour or fine almond meal is the direct substitute; the instruction "smooth but not too fine" means you want a workable paste, not a slick butter, so stop short of over-processing.
The sugar ratioBetter than two parts sugar to one part almond is high even by macaroon standards, and it is what gives these their crisp shell and chewy centre. Do not reduce it much or the paste will not hold a piped ball.
"Cocoa softened in a mild oven"Four ounces of unsweetened cocoa powder warmed through in a low oven so it loosens, dries and disperses rather than clumping in the paste. A short spell in the gentlest oven you have is enough; it should not toast or it turns bitter.
Pocket and socketA piping bag fitted with a plain round tip, about 1/2 inch. Pipe into small mounds roughly an inch across, well spaced.
Damp cloth, then nonpareilsThis is the hinge. The surface must be tacky, not wet, or the sugar beads dissolve into streaks and the tops crack. Pat lightly with a barely damp cloth, scatter the nonpareils, then tip the sheet to shed the loose ones.
A slack oven300F, or a touch lower. These are dried as much as baked: 15 to 20 minutes for inch rounds, until the shells are set and lift cleanly but the centres are still soft.
Baking on paperParchment does the job of the period's writing paper. If a macaroon sticks, brush a little water beneath the sheet and the steam will release it, which is the old trick and still the best one.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its petits-fours chapter reads like an inventory of a large pastry brigade's daily output: bitter macaroons, cream macaroons in cases, and this chocolate version, all built on the same almond-and-egg-white base with one element changed. Nonpareille is French for "without equal," applied — by tradition at least as far back as the eighteenth century, though the dating is uncertain — to the tiny hard sugar beads used as a finish; the English trade simply borrowed the word, which is why a jar of nonpareils sits on supermarket shelves today. Cocoa powder of the kind Ranhofer calls for was itself a comparatively modern convenience, by his time commercially available for decades, made possible by the press that separated cocoa butter from the solids, and its arrival let pastry cooks flavour a paste with chocolate without adding fat that would slacken it.