Mac and cheese from scratch cheese powder

Blue box as directed: bring 48 ounces of water to a rolling boil, cook the pasta seven to eight minutes until flaccid but toothsome, return it to the pot with the granules, add no milk and no butter.

Bought powder blend: mix 21 g powdered cheddar, 5 g blue cheese powder, 10 g Parmesan cheese powder, about 5 g buttermilk powder and about 20 g butter powder to match the 36 g packet.

Bring the water to a steady 212F, cook 170 g dried elbow pasta for five minutes.

To the nearly dry pasta with about a quarter cup of pasta water, add the cheese powder and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon.

Homemade powder: dehydrate the cheeses at 120F for about 12 hours.

Lift the dried cheese onto paper towels in a rimmed baking sheet, lay more towels on top, sandwich between two baking sheets and press firmly and evenly to absorb the expelled oil.

Freeze 30 minutes to make the cheese brittle.

Skip the food processor, which lacks the horsepower, and blast the cheese in a high-powered blender on high for about a minute until it is a fine powder.

With a food-grade desiccant the powder keeps three to five months in the fridge; it is not shelf stable.

Master homemade powder: equal parts cheddar, yellow American and Gruyere with about half a part Parmesan, a fat pinch of kosher salt, a tablespoon of buttermilk powder and two tablespoons of butter powder, passed through a fine mesh sieve.

Extrusion dough: whisk 300 g all-purpose flour with 5 g kosher salt in the stand mixer bowl, add one large egg, 80 g water and 10 g olive oil, and mix to a very dry, almost crumbly dough that just barely comes together and breaks apart with a little effort.

Press into a disc, wrap in plastic and rest at room temperature about 30 minutes.

Dust a rimmed baking sheet with flour, break off walnut-sized pieces, roll them in flour and have five or six ready.

Set the stand mixer to its highest speed with the bucatini plate in the extruder, feed the balls into the hopper and snip the extruded pasta into little macaroni; flour each batch of about 50.

Toss the macaroni in a sieve to remove excess flour.

Cook the fresh pasta in boiling water for no more than 90 seconds, or until tender but al dente.

Drain, reserving about half a cup of pasta cooking water.

Add the dried cheese sauce with a splash of pasta water, maybe a quarter cup, and let it rehydrate slowly into a smooth, then gooey and stretchy cheese sauce.