Skip to main content
Dessert

Macaroni Pudding

A sweet baked macaroni dish made with condensed milk, sugar, eggs, and optional butter and flour, topped with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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.

Prepare

  1. Cook the macaroni in boiling water until tender, then strain.

  2. Place the macaroni in a pie dish.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix the condensed milk, sugar, and eggs to make a custard.

  2. If you don't have eggs, use butter and flour to thicken the milk instead.

  3. Pour the custard over the macaroni.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. Grate nutmeg on top before serving, if desired.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Condensed milk + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the pudding and holds the custard in place.
Condensed milk
Provides sweetness and creamy body to the custard.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its firm texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly on top.
Butter
Adds richness and fat; used with flour to thicken the milk if eggs are missing.
Flour
Thickens the milk when used with butter, standing in for eggs.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pudding too early leaves a runny custard, while overbaking can make it curdle or turn grainy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against condensed milk, sugar, egg, butter, flour. 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes