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Dessert

Macaroni Pudding

A baked macaroni pudding made with milk, sugar, egg, and optional flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, 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 the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into pieces.

  2. Boil the macaroni in salted water for 50 minutes until tender, then drain it.

  3. Cut the macaroni into half-inch lengths.

Make the custard

  1. Cook the macaroni gently in the milk for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the sugar, beaten egg, and any flavoring you like.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 body of the pudding and absorbs the milk as it cooks.
Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks the pasta and sets into a creamy base.
Egg
Sets during baking to bind the pudding and give it a firmer texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Cooking the macaroni gently in the milk. Milk scorches and can boil over on high heat, and its proteins can stick to the bottom of the pan. Gentle heat lets the pasta soak up the milk evenly and keeps the base smooth.

“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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