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Baked Macaroni

A baked dish of macaroni, cheese, butter, and milk or cream, layered and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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.

Prepare

  1. Break the macaroni into inch lengths.

  2. Boil in a saucepan of salted water until tender but not broken.

  3. Drain well and butter a pudding dish.

Assemble

  1. Layer macaroni and grated cheese in the dish, adding bits of butter between layers.

  2. Finish with a layer of macaroni, butter it, and sprinkle cheese on top.

  3. Add a few spoonfuls of milk or cream and a pinch of salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Uncover and brown nicely before serving.

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. Butter + cheesetop 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).

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 when baked.
Grated cheese
Melts into the macaroni to add richness and savoury flavour, and browns on top.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top layer brown in the oven.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture that softens the pasta and combines with the cheese into a sauce.

The step that matters

Uncover and brown nicely before serving. Covering keeps moisture in during baking, so the top only browns once the cover is removed. Leaving the dish covered too long produces a pale, wet top rather than a golden crust.

“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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