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Macaroni with Cheese

A baked macaroni dish with cheese, milk, butter, and a crumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Macaroni with Cheese

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Macaroni with 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.

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Boil salted water and add the macaroni.

  2. Cook until tender, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine hot milk, flour, and butter; cook until smooth and season to taste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a small pudding pan.

  2. Layer macaroni, grated cheese, and thickened milk, repeating until all ingredients are used.

  3. Top with fine cracker crumbs and bits of cheese and butter.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 and body of the dish once baked.
Flour
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth sauce that holds the layers together.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and browns the topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it creaminess.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding savory flavor and a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until smooth. Flour added to hot milk can form lumps if not stirred well as it cooks. Cooking it fully lets the starch swell and thicken evenly, giving a smooth sauce that coats the macaroni.

“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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