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Dessert

Macaroni Pudding

A sweet pudding made from macaroni, milk, lemon peel, cinnamon, butter, eggs, and sugar, steamed until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Macaroni Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Soak the macaroni in water for 10 minutes, then strain.

Cook the pudding

  1. In a saucepan, combine the macaroni with boiling milk, lemon peel, cinnamon, and butter.

  2. Cook until the macaroni is tender.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten eggs and sugar to taste.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered pudding dish.

  2. Steam over boiling water for 30 minutes.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the pudding and gives it a tender, starchy body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks the pasta and creates a creamy, soft custard base.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the pudding structure and a firm, sliceable texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the milk and egg flavors.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs off the heat. Eggs thicken when heated, so adding them to very hot milk can scramble them. Removing the pan from heat first and stirring steadily lets the eggs thicken the custard smoothly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cinnamon, butter, egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cinnamon, butter, egg, sugar. 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.

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