Name: Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Ingredients: 1 lb macaroni; ¾ lb cheese; 2 oz butter; 8 oz white sauce (no butter); 8 oz lettuce; 2 eggs; 8 oz bread; 1 lb canned pears; cake

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

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.

Make the cheese sauce

Cook the macaroni according to package instructions until al dente.
In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the cheese, stirring until melted.
Combine the cooked macaroni with the cheese sauce and mix well.

Bake and serve

Transfer to a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden and bubbly.
Serve with a salad of lettuce and hard-boiled eggs.
Enjoy with bread and canned pears for dessert.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Lettuce + peartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together92 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cheese + peartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together96 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Macaroni: Forms the bulk of the dish and gives it a firm, chewy structure.
Cheese: Melts into the sauce to add richness and a savory, creamy flavor.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the cheese melt smoothly into a sauce.
White sauce: Supplies moisture and body so the macaroni stays creamy rather than dry.
Eggs: Help set the baked dish and add structure as they cook.

The step that matters

Transfer to a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden and bubbly.. Cheese sauces can turn grainy or oily if heated too hard, so baking at a moderate temperature until just bubbly keeps the sauce smooth while the top browns.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, sauce, egg, bread, pear):

Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits better
Tomatofits better
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, sauce, egg, bread, pear. 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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Macaroni and Cheese102 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

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Baked Macaroni and Cheese