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Dessert

Macaroni

A sweet baked macaroni dish with almonds, eggs, butter, sugar, milk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Macaroni

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard base

  1. Soak the macaroni in milk and cream for a few hours.

  2. Place the saucepan over low heat, add almonds, and simmer until the macaroni is tender.

  3. Beat the eggs, then mix in butter and sugar.

  4. Combine the egg mixture with the macaroni mixture and stir well.

Bake

  1. Pour into a well-buttered pie dish.

  2. Sprinkle with nutmeg and lemon peel.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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, thickening as it softens in the milk and cream.
Eggs
Set as the pudding bakes, giving it a firm, custard-like structure.
Almonds
Add richness and a nutty flavour, and help thicken the mixture as they simmer.
Milk and cream
Provide moisture and richness, keeping the pudding soft and creamy.
Caster sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly on top.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Bake until the custard is just set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding loose while overbaking can make it curdled, dry and rubbery.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, almond, egg, butter, sugar, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, almond, egg, butter, sugar, nutmeg. 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.

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