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Noodle Dessert with Cheese

A baked casserole of noodles, cheese, and a butter‑flour sauce topped with cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Noodle Dessert with Cheese

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 the noodles

  1. If making noodles, mix 2 eggs to form the dough.

  2. If using macaroni, cut ¼ pound and boil in salted water for 15 minutes. Drain the macaroni and rinse with cold water.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour.

  2. Gradually add the milk while stirring constantly until the mixture thickens, then remove from heat.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a pudding dish and layer noodles, cheese, and sauce, repeating until all ingredients are used.

  2. Top with cheese, cracker crumbs, and flakes of butter. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parmesan cheese + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

Eggs
Form the structure of homemade noodles and add richness to the dough.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and browns the crumb topping.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that binds the layers together.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and melts into the sauce for a rich texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk into the roux. Adding the milk gradually while stirring constantly keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

“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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