Skip to main content
Main

Macaroni Pudding

A baked macaroni dish with cheese, mustard, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Macaroni Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring continuously until it boils.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the macaroni, cheese, mustard, salt, and pepper; mix well.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a well-buttered baking dish.

  3. Sprinkle the top with brown breadcrumbs and grated cheese.

  4. Dot with small pieces of butter.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until nicely browned, about 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the flour-and-milk sauce and helps the topping brown richly.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that binds the macaroni.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that coats the macaroni.
Macaroni
Provides the bulk and body of the pudding.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury richness and flavour and helps the top brown.
Prepared mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy note that balances the rich cheese sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling the milk sauce. Flour must be cooked into the butter and milk until the sauce boils and thickens; if it is not brought to a boil while stirring, the flour can taste raw and the sauce can stay thin or lumpy.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, cheese, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, cheese, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes