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Dessert

Sweet Macaroni Pudding

A baked sweet macaroni pudding made with milk, eggs, brandy, lemon rind, sugar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sweet Macaroni Pudding

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Put the macaroni, with a pint of the milk, into a saucepan with the lemon peel, and let it simmer gently until the macaroni is tender.

  2. Transfer the cooked macaroni into a pie dish without the peel.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the other pint of milk with the eggs; stir well together, adding the sugar and brandy.

  2. Pour the mixture over the macaroni.

  3. Grate a little nutmeg over the top.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a moderate oven for 1/2 hour.

  2. If desired, lay a paste around the edges of the dish, and optionally place a layer of preserve or marmalade on the macaroni, omitting the brandy.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

251Calories
15 gProtein
14 gFat
18 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Brandynot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides the liquid that the eggs set into a custard, giving moisture.
Eggs
Set as they bake, binding the milk into a soft custard.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the custard.
Lemon
Its peel gives a citrus aroma to the milk as it simmers.

The step that matters

Baking the custard in a moderate oven. The egg proteins set gradually as the custard heats. If the oven is too hot or the pudding bakes too long, the eggs can overcook, turning the custard grainy or watery.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, brandy, egg, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, brandy, egg, nutmeg. 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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