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Dessert

Macaroni Pudding

A baked sweet macaroni dish made with milk, eggs, lemon, sugar, butter, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Make the custard base

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

  2. Heat and add the remaining milk.

  3. While hot, stir in the butter, beaten egg yolks, sugar, mace, lemon juice, and lemon peel.

Bake and serve

  1. Finally, fold in the whisked egg whites.

  2. Bake in a buttered mold, covered, for 30 minutes, then uncover and 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.

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

Macaroni
Forms the body of the pudding, giving it a tender, starchy texture once simmered.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that cooks the macaroni and sets into a custard.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites, folded in, lighten the pudding as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a smooth, tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and aids browning on the surface.
Lemon
Its juice adds acidity and its peel adds aromatic brightness to the custard.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whisked whites trap air that gives lift; overmixing or deflating them makes the pudding dense. Fold gently so the foam stays intact through the bake.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

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