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Macaroni — Continued

A sweet macaroni dish baked with jam, raisin wine, and an egg custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Macaroni — Continued

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine macaroni, lemon peel, cinnamon, and milk in a saucepan.

  2. Boil gently until tender.

  3. Butter a pie dish and line the edge with light pastry.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of three eggs and the white of one.

  2. Mix with ½ cup milk, sweeten with caster sugar, and flavor with raisin wine, peach water, and nutmeg.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the cooked macaroni.

  2. Spread marmalade or jam over the macaroni.

  3. Pour the egg mixture on top and bake.

  4. Serve hot or cold.

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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Cinnamon + peachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks and white bind the custard and help it set when baked.
Milk
Provides liquid that cooks the macaroni and forms the custard with the eggs.
Pipe macaroni
Forms the starchy base layer that holds the custard and jam.
Marmalade or strawberry jam
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity that flavours the layer under the custard.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture on top and bake. Eggs set into a custard through gentle heat. Too much heat or too long in the oven can curdle or toughen the custard, so watch it closely until just set.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, lemon, cinnamon, egg, sugar, raisin, wine):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, cinnamon, egg, sugar, raisin, wine. 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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