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Baked Macaroni

A baked dish of macaroni layered with cheese, butter, pepper, and milk.

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

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Baked Macaroni

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.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Break macaroni into 1-inch lengths.

  2. Cook in boiling salted water for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain and cover the bottom of a buttered dish with macaroni.

Layer the dish

  1. Strew with grated cheese, bits of butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add another layer of macaroni and repeat the strew with cheese and butter on top.

  3. Pour in ½ cup of milk and cover the dish.

Bake and brown

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, then uncover and brown quickly.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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, holding its shape between the cheese layers.
Grated cheese
Melts into a creamy, savory sauce that binds the macaroni together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the top brown in the oven.
Milk
Provides moisture that combines with the melted cheese to form a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Uncover to brown quickly after baking covered. Baking covered traps steam, so the macaroni cooks through and the cheese melts evenly. Uncovering at the end lets the surface dry out, and the heat drives browning through the Maillard reaction, which gives flavor and color. Leaving it covered too long leaves the top pale.

“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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