What makes egg whites and almonds a good combination

Question

Macarons, financiers, ricciarellis are all made from egg whites and almond flour.
Is there a reason why egg whites get along so well with almond flour, and why yolks do not have a place in these recipes?
It is easy to see why in macarons since macarons are meringue based cookie, but financier does not use meringue and still calls for egg whites only.
Maybe the fat in the almond suffices to make the products rich, or maybe the coarse texture of almond needs to be countered with the moistness of egg whites, but they are just wild guesses I am making up.
I would like to know if there is an 'official' reason why egg whites and almonds go together.

rumtscho · Accepted Answer

There is nothing special about the combination, you seem to have stumbled over a case of confirmation bias :)

Here I made a table with examples. The table is by no means complete, it contains the first things that came up in my head. As you see, all other combinations of whole eggs or egg yolks work with almonds, other nuts, or no nuts at all. If the combination you noted were somehow special, I wouldn't have been able to find examples for other, not-working categories.
So, combining almonds and meringue is the perfect combination for a macaron, and combining almonds, egg whites and flour is the perfect combination for a financier, but only because that's what makes a macaron a macaron and a financier a financier. You can use any combination out of {egg whites, eggs, egg yolks} and {almonds, other nuts} and each of them tastes good and has been used for something in the kitchen.

Johanna · Answer

Adding to @rumtscho's excellent answer, you can in fact substitute almond flour with hazelnut or walnut flour (those are the ones I've tried) in macarons and still end up with a very similar result. Almonds are the traditional one to use, but there is nothing magical about almonds specifically.

Answered by Johanna on September 8, 2020

What makes egg whites and almonds a good combination

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