Caméron and Inez Delicious and Cheesy Baked Mac and Cheese


INTRO
So many people love and enjoy the cheesy and creamy noodle-based dish, Macaroni and Cheese. Even though it
is an American favorite, is it really an American classic? Most people do not know but this dish’s origins are kind
of a mystery, made around 400-500 years ago in Europe: France, England, Italy no one really knows. Though the
person who popularized in America was America’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, who at the time was an ambassador in France and was so head over heels for the recipe that he brought it over to America.
The first recorded recipe was recorded around some time in 1769 that only required three ingredients to make the dish complete: macaroni, cheese, and butter.

THE SIMPLE SCIENCE BEHIND CHEESE SAUCE

Typically when someone wants to use a cheese sauce they have to use some form of a thickener to thicken up the sauce for the macaroni. To determine the thickness of a cheese sauce, one should go based on its viscosity(the thickness of a fluid).
The most common thickener to use to make any Mac N Cheese creamy is a roux, which is used in French cuisine, and is made from equal parts of butter and flour. A roux is a base used for a bechamel, also used in French cuisine known as one of the Mother Sauces, that includes milk and that milk coats the roux particles.
Once they combine together the milk goes from a liquid to a semi-solid state, the process is called coagulation. The same thing occurs for another thickener sauce a Bouillie, also used in French cuisine, as it uses just flour and milk, so the milk coats the flour particles.
Another commonly used type of a thickener used in the South is the use of eggs and milk, mixing them as a custard to pour into the cheese and noodles.
All three of these thickeners can be used to make a cheesy and creamy Mac and Cheese.

THE EXCITING EXPERIMENT 

In our experiment, we chose to test which thickener would be the best thickener to make the creamiest and cheesiest Macaroni and Cheese. Our independent variable was the type of thickener used in all three of the trials.

RECIPE AND INSTRUCTIONS 

  1. Boil pasta on high heat until pasta becomes Al dente, time depends on what the brand of the pasta considers Al dente.

  2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

  3. Shred or cut up any kind of cheese that is easy to melt

  4. Take the pasta off the heat and drain the pasta water, make sure you use ¼ cup of butter to keep the pasta from sticking together

  5. Pour milk into a pot and turn on low heat while stirring in the flour

  6. Wait until the Bouillie turned into a semi-solid state

  7. Take the bouillie off the heat and mix it in with the pasta

  8. Placed the now mixed Mac N Cheese into a greased tinfoil pan

  9. Add more shredded or cube cheese onto the top of the Mac n Cheese

  10. Bake for about 20-30 mins for each trial

  11. Repeat this with trial two with the bechamel but adding the cooking of roux as an extra step, and with trial three but just mixing the egg and milk to pour into the mixed pasta and cheese.

  12. Taste Test and Enjoy!






TRIAL ONE 
TRIAL TWO
TRIAL THREE
  • Bouillie 
  • Pale and Somewhat creamy
  • Tasted and felt starchy
  • Tasted Alright
  • Bechamel 
  • Pale goldenish color and extremely thick and creamy
  • Tasted cheesy
  • Tasted so delicious 
  • Egg-Milk Custard
  • Turn into a nice brownish- yellow color
  • Somewhat cheesy 
  • Tasted a little bit creamy

CONCLUSION

  
In conclusion, the  second trial was the best trial everyone said it was nice and cheesy. The first trail was white because we use white cheddar cheeses , and the third trail a lot of people can taste egg more than the cheese.The everyone enjoyed the second trial because the use of a roux with heavy cream that caused the cheese to be creamy. This was the best thickener to allow the mac and cheese to be creamy.

Image result for mac and cheese
  

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