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Macaroni Cheese Cakes

A baked casserole of macaroni, milk, cream, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, and flavoring, topped with thin pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon 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 ↓

Macaroni Cheese Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni in milk and water until soft but not pulpy.

  2. In a bowl, beat together the cream, eggs, nutmeg, sugar, and flavoring.

  3. Line well-buttered patty pans with thin crust.

Bake

  1. Place a little cold macaroni in each pan and pour the creamy mixture over it.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the body of each cake, giving bulk and a soft, tender bite.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the custard and giving the cakes their firm structure.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, keeping the custard smooth and moist.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes. Eggs set as they heat, so baking too long or too hot makes the custard curdle, puff, and turn dry and rubbery. Stop when the centre is just set.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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