Name: Macaroni Cheese
Ingredients: 1 ounce macaroni; salt; 4 ounces grated cheese; bread crumbs; butter

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Macaroni Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil macaroni in salted boiling water for 30 minutes.
Drain the macaroni and place it in a buttered dish.

Assemble and bake

Layer with grated cheese and cover with bread crumbs.
Dot the top with a few pieces of butter.
Bake until golden brown.

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.

Bread + buttertop 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).

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 structure of the dish once boiled and baked.
Grated cheese: Melts into the pasta, adding richness, fat and savoury flavour.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the top brown during baking.
Bread crumbs: Creates a crisp, golden topping that contrasts with the soft pasta.

“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.