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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 cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, 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.

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

  3. Lightly coat a deep gratin tin with some melted butter.

Layer and bake

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

  2. Add half of the remaining butter on top.

  3. Layer the rest of the macaroni, followed by more grated cheese.

  4. Pour the remaining butter over the top.

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

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

  2. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

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

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

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 provides the starchy body that holds the layers together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browning the butter first gives a nutty, toasted flavour.
Grated cheese
Melts into the layers to add savoury flavour and a rich, binding texture.

The step that matters

Bake until the top is golden brown. The surface needs enough heat for browning, which develops savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pulling it too early leaves the top pale and the cheese under-melted.

“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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