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Dessert

Macaroni Pudding

A sweet macaroni pudding flavored with lemon, made with milk, eggs, butter, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Pudding

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.

Make the macaroni base

  1. Simmer the macaroni in ½ quart of milk until tender.

  2. While hot, stir in the butter.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks and mix with sugar, lemon juice, and lemon rind.

  2. Fold in the whipped egg whites.

Bake

  1. Combine all ingredients and pour into a baking dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites, whipped and folded in, lighten the pudding and help it set.
Macaroni
Provides the body of the pudding, absorbing milk as it simmers until tender.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that cooks with the macaroni and sets with the eggs.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the custard texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a smoother mouthfeel.
Lemon
Juice adds acidity and rind adds aroma, brightening the sweet custard.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped egg whites. Whites trapped with air give lift, but overmixing or deflating them makes the pudding dense. Fold gently so the foam stays intact until baking sets the custard.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, 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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