Skip to main content
Main

Macaroni and Cream

A creamy macaroni dish with Parmesan cheese, butter, and cream, served with toasted bread triangles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni and Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into short lengths.

  2. Boil salted water and add the macaroni; cook for about 20 minutes or until tender.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Heat the butter in a pan, then drain the macaroni and add it to the pan.

  2. Stir in the cheese and cream, and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Heat until hot, then serve garnished with triangles of bread.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Parmesan cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together577 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni (in the method)
Forms the bulk of the dish and carries the sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and body to the sauce as it melts.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor across the dish.
Cream
Provides moisture and a smooth, rich texture for the sauce.

“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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes