Sainsburys macaroni

[cardiologist349275]

I was just idling in the kitchen and a packet of Sainsburys macaroni pasta I used earlier caught my eye. It says on the back:

"Perfect for sweet or savoury dishes, the smooth sides and hollow centre of the tubes soak up the flavours. Great for baking too."

Ummm....WTF Sainsburys. Are people really putting a layer of macaroni in their trifle or adding it to their victoria sponge mix nowadays???? Please tell me they aren't. I think I'd throw up if I fished out a piece of pasta in someone's tray bake. Bleurghhhhhh!

Its just made from, essentially flour and water - why does it have to be savoury? You can also use cous cous (which is basically small balls of pasta) to make sweet things - I used to make it for breakfast by soaking in fruit juice and stirring yoghurt through.

“Suitable for baking” means you can bake the macaroni.

Not bake up a bunch of cakes and put some macaroni in them

There's a pudding, like rice pudding or bread and butter pudding but with macaroni. It's a real thing!

It was called bagpipes in my house.

Utterly minging.

cooking a pudding is not baking

Er, yes. There are plenty of baked puddings.

Perhaps they mean the same way you bake a lasagne? So, make a macaroni cheesy thing and crisp it up in the oven.

@eagerlywaitingfor

The packet literally says 'Perfect for sweet or savoury dishes', so that covers dessert puddings; and cooking a pudding is not baking.

So the OP is right to be puzzled.

But baking doesn't necessarily mean baking cakes or biscuits, it is a description of a type of cooking ie cooking with dry heat without a flame, such as in an oven. Lasagne or cannelloni are baked pasta dishes, as is kugel (the Jewish sweet pasta dish).

Love macaroni pudding. Proper comfort food.

The packet literally says 'Perfect for sweet or savoury dishes', so that covers dessert puddings; and cooking a pudding is not baking.

Eh? A cooked pudding is sweet.

Tinned macaroni pudding. Not seen any around for years but I loved it as a child 😆

my mother would regale us with her memories of her Gran's Macaroni Pudding, I just thought it was a weird thing in her family. It's why she won't (or wouldn't) eat Macaroni Cheese.

I adore all milk puddings but cannot say I have ever fancied making a macaroni pudding.

Yes it's a thing, same as rice pudding, or bread and butter pudding. Have you heard of those op?

@Ifailed

cooking a pudding is not baking

Er, yes. There are plenty of baked puddings.

So what is the difference between cooking the 'sweet and savoury dishes' as per the packet, and baking them? Since a lot of the dishes that you'd cook with macaroni are put in the oven anyway, why mention baking as a separate thing?

What does a baker do, on the whole? Bake bread, cakes, tarts and pastries. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the Great British Bake-Off has ever had a dish with macaroni in it.

I remember macaroni pudding in the 1980s-yum!

Macaroni pudding is delicious. We had that in the 1970s, long before anyone knew about Italian cooking. Baked in the oven like rice pudding or semolina pudding. Drool!

People eat different food , shocker 🙄

I grew up on pasta with ground walnuts, melted butter and sugar or milled poppy seeds with butter and sugar.
Pasta mixed with butter and jam, then layered with ground walnuts and baked in the oven till the top was crispy used to be one of my top favourite dishes.
Yes, I can imagine mixing pasta and sweet stuff. Whenever I had leftover pasta and DD was peckish, she got it mixed with melted butter and cocoa, like drinking cocoa or Nesquik. She still likes eating it as a treat.

So what is the difference between cooking the 'sweet and savoury dishes' as per the packet, and baking them? Since a lot of the dishes that you'd cook with macaroni are put in the oven anyway, why mention baking as a separate thing? What does a baker do, on the whole? Bake bread, cakes, tarts and pastries.

Baking is a cooking technique, @eagerlywaitingfor. It means cooking in dry heat without a flame. The goods that are made by a baker are all baked but that doesn't mean a baker makes and sells all dishes that can be baked...

I would imagine that it specifies that the macaroni can be used in baked dishes because some dried pasta isn't suitable for baking without par-boiling first or will disintegrate in the sauce if cooked for the length of time needed to cook the other ingredients. It depends on the size, thickness and shape of the pasta (and the amount of sauce).

Oh wow. I'm surprised so many posters defend pasta pudding when I highly doubt any/many of them have had or made it before.

It's like writing on a chocolate bar, great for sweet treats and for chilli. I mean, it may be ok in chilli but it's not used much in it so it's a bit 🤨

@Dontforgetyourbrolly

People eat different food , shocker 🙄

Why the attitude though? MN can be so toxic sometimes.

Friendships, many older (i.e. over 50) people on MN have probably had macaroni pudding. I certainly have - and vermicelli pudding, and sago and semolina and rice and tapioca. Lovely and comforting on a chilly winter day.

So much anger on this thread.

@gobbynorthernbird

Italians have been making puddings with pasta for literally centuries. This makes you sound very ignorant.

Oh how interesting. I had no idea. Can you please link to some pasta pudding recipes in Italian for me? Thank you.

For those asking about baking, Macaroni cheese pies are a thing in Scotland and the border regions

@cardiologist349275, maybe for inspiration: www.the-pasta-project.com/chocolate-and-walnut-sweet-pasta-recipe/

Sorry to hear that your Google is broken, @cardiologist349275