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Macaroni with Cheese and Butter

A baked macaroni dish layered with cheese, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and gruyere cheese work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 323 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni with Cheese and Butter

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni until tender, then drain.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan until light brown.

  3. Grease a deep gratin tin with some melted butter.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer half the macaroni in the tin, sprinkle with cheese, salt, pepper, and cayenne if desired.

  2. Add half of the remaining butter on top.

  3. Repeat with the remaining macaroni and cheese, then pour the rest of the butter over the top.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the top is golden 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 + gruyere cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Gruyere cheese + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together322 recipes

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

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 tender, starchy structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns during baking for a golden top.
Parmesan or gruyere cheese
Melts into the pasta to add savoury flavour and a creamy, binding texture.

The step that matters

Baking until the top is golden brown. Baking at a high oven temperature browns the butter and cheese on top through the Maillard reaction, which adds flavour. Stopping too early leaves the top pale and the dish under-flavoured, while baking too long can dry the pasta.

“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 macaroni and cheese recipes

Baked 52Croquettes 10Timbale 8Casserole 6Soup 5with Tomato Sauce 3 See all 313 →

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