Skip to main content
Main

Baked Macaroni

A baked macaroni dish with sweet cream, butter, grated cheese, and seasoned breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓
Baked Macaroni

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Macaroni

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni and drain it.

  2. Place the macaroni in a shallow baking dish.

Season and top

  1. Season with salt and pepper.

  2. Add sweet cream or milk and butter.

  3. Cover with grated cheese and sprinkle with seasoned bread crumbs.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until nicely browned.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 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 of the dish and gives it a firm, pasta-based structure.
Sweet cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness so the macaroni stays tender while baking.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour and helps the top brown in the oven.
Grated cheese
Melts over the macaroni and adds savoury flavour and a golden crust.
Seasoned bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping that contrasts with the soft pasta beneath.

The step that matters

Bake until nicely browned. Baking at 400°F (200°C) until the top is nicely browned sets the cheese and crumbs into a crisp crust. Stopping too early leaves the topping pale and the dish wet underneath.

“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.

More baked macaroni recipes

You might also like