Baked Macaroni and Cheese

If you're looking for a heavy, overly rich, gooey mac and cheese-this isn't it. This is, for lack of a better description, a mac and cheese soufflé. It is wonderful, and we all enjoyed it (including the ancient poodle who is now eyeing me suspiciously because he never gets table food, and probably thinks he's headed to the vet).

I made my own noodles for this, but you could certainly use store-bought. I always seem to have more eggs than I need, so making noodles makes sense for our family, but I'm not so much of a food snob to insist your mac and cheese will somehow be inferior with packaged macaroni.

Truthfully, the best macaroni and cheese was my mother's and she used to make it with No Yolks noodles and three tins of condensed cheese soup. I know, the yolkless noodles is sort of like having a diet soda with a fast food burger. It was good macaroni casserole, and the only reason I don't make a similar one anymore is because what they charge for a tin of cheese soup is robbery.

Again, I turned to my trusty Amish cookbook for the recipe. I slightly increased the proportions because I had extra noodles, but I'll post it as printed.

Adapted from Amish and Mennonite Kitchens, Pellman and Good


You Will Need:

1 1/2 cups milk, scalded
2 cups soft bread crumbs
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 tbsp. onion, chopped (I used dried)
1 1/2 cups mild cheese (I used a combination of cheddar, provolone, and Swiss)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups macaroni, cooked
Paprika

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a casserole dish and set aside.

Pour scalded milk over breadcrumbs. Stir in butter, onion, cheese and salt.

Beat egg yolks and add. Stir in cooked macaroni.

Beat egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Fold into macaroni mixture. Pour into casserole and sprinkle top with paprika. Bake 1 hour.