Instead of starting with a traditional roux, this Four-Cheese Mac and Cheese begins with a sauce made from Hood Cream, Hood Sour Cream, and cream cheese. Add in three more cheeses and the result is the creamiest most flavorful mac and cheese you've ever had!

Head-on view of three ramekins of four-cheese mac and cheese on a marble tray with a fork lifting mac and cheese out and recipe title at top of image.

Thank you to Hood Cream for sponsoring this post. As always, all opinions are 100% my own and I really appreciate you supporting We are not Martha!

When was the last time you learned something so cool that you knew your life would never be the same? OK, I may be being a tad bit dramatic, but last week I attended a cooking class put on by Hood Cream and Boston chef and brand spokesperson Chris Coombs and learned two things that are blowing my mind. Those two things are:

How to make the most delicious mac and cheese in the world... In a way easier way than the typical mac and cheese.
How to make a croquembouche.... Which to be honest, I'd only really seen photos of before and just automatically assumed I'd never make one myself because, holy moly complicated.

First of all, you've probably noticed that I've been working with Hood and several of their brands for a long time. If you're from New England, you definitely know the brand well and I hope they're your go-to when at the grocery store. I've always known that Hood makes the highest quality cream, but one reason this event was so cool was to hear well-known Boston chef, Chris Coombs (of restaurants Deuxave, dbar, and Boston Chops), talk about how it's the only cream he uses in his restaurants.

The other reason is because I learned so many useable skills. And I'm going to show you the secret to the best ever four-cheese mac and cheese in this post!

View of a sign that says "Welcome to the Hood Cream Holiday cooking class."

👩‍🍳 Croquembouche technique

But first, the croquembouche! Do know what croquembouche is? As you can see in the below, it's a gorgeous holiday dessert. It looks like lots of little munchkin donuts piled on top of each other, but they're actually choux pastry balls piled into a cone with threads of caramel.

They're often served at fancy events like weddings and baptisms in France. Like I mentioned, I've seen croquembouche before, but it never even crossed my mind to try and make one because it just looked way too complicated.

Collage with two photos of croquembouche decorated for Christmas, one small tree and one tall tree.

And, I mean, it's not exactly a quick and simple recipe. But it is definitely doable... And so worth it for the gorgeous results! Chef Coombs and his executive, chef Adrienne Wright (FYI she's going to be on the upcoming season of Top Chef!), did a little demo and then had us join in and get to work.

They made all the cream puffs and showed us how to make the pastry cream and then had us whip the Hood Cream (by hand, no less!) and fold it into the pastry cream. Then we filled the cream puffs with chocolate, pumpkin, and vanilla pastry cream.

Collage showing Sues at Hood Cream cooking event, filling cream puffs for croquembouche and a photo of Chef Chis Coombs pouring hot cream into chocolate mixture.

Then we used hot sugar/caramel to build either a wreath or a tree. I went with a wreath and it was so fun to decorate... But even more fun to eat the cream puffs in between building.

So yes, there are a few steps to making croquembouche, but you don't have to do it all at once and the results are stunning. I'll definitely be making my own croquembouche at some point and will potentially blog about it, too!

In the meantime, here's the one I created in the cooking class... how perfect is this for the holidays?? I'm pretty sure all your guests would be impressed with this on the table!

Overhead view of homemade croquembouche wreath decorated for the holidays.

🧀 How to make four-cheese mac and cheese

But today I'm blogging about the best mac and cheese ever.

OK, so typically when I make mac and cheese, I start with a roux made of milk/cream and flour... Just because this is how I was always taught and never thought to question it. But Chef Coombs showed us an even more delicious way.

Instead of a roux, simply start with a sauce made of Hood Cream, Hood Sour Cream, and a little bit of cream cheese. He made it look so easy and the end result was so incredible that I decided to make it at home.

Chef Chris Coombs making sauce for four-cheese mac and cheese.

But wait! There's an important first step... confit garlic. The recipe below shows you how to make a big batch of garlic (you only need 3 cloves for the mac and cheese), but you can keep it in your fridge for a couple months, so I recommend making it all.

Literally all you do is sauté the garlic cloves in extra virgin olive oil over very low heat for about an hour. Try not to let it brown (my burners are all super hot for some reason, so mine did get a tiny bit brown).

Garlic in olive oil in a pan for confit garlic.

Like I mentioned, the sauce starts with cream, sour cream, and cream cheese. Then you mix in THREE more cheeses (the fourth in the four-cheese mac and cheese is the cream cheese), some spices, and your cooked macaroni. The recipe calls for comté, gruyere, and gouda, which made for an excellent combination, but you can use whatever cheeses best suit your tastes.

Mix in a little hot sauce and some cayenne (more or less depending on how spicy you like it), fresh thyme, salt and pepper, and 3 cloves of the garlic.

Collage showing sauce being made for four-cheese mac and cheese, including photo of cream, cream cheese, and sour cream being whisked; cheeses being added to sauce, and spices being added to sauce.

Use an immersion blender to make the sauce nice and smooth. Then mix in the cooked macaroni. Whip up a quick panko topping, which is just panko breadcrumbs, butter, and parsley.

Collage showing four-cheese mac and cheese being assembled, including photo of homemade sauce in pot; macaroni stirred into sauce; and panko and parsley mixed together in pan.

Put the mac and cheese in a casserole dish or in individual ramekins and top with a healthy portion of panko. Nope, you don't have to bake it or anything. It's just ready!

I love making my mac and cheese in ramekins because you can just grab out of the fridge and heat it up before digging into your individual portion. Serving it like this is also absolutely perfect for the holidays... Imagine how excited guests would be to get their own serving of mac and cheese?

I've never actually made mac and cheese for a holiday dinner before, but now that I have this recipe, that might need to change!

Head-on view of four-cheese mac and cheese with panko topping in a white ramekin on a marble platter with carton of cream in the background.

OK, so let me just tell you that this is the creamiest, boldest, most flavorful mac and cheese ever. I know the creaminess is thanks to the Hood Cream and the bold flavor is thanks to the Hood Sour Cream and the amazing mixture of FOUR cheeses.

Also, this four-cheese mac and cheese doesn't skimp on panko topping and I love a little crunch to my mac and cheese. Every bite was perfect.

Head-on view of three ramekins of four-cheese mac and cheese on a marble tray with a fork lifting mac and cheese out.

Having these little ramekins of four-cheese mac and cheese in my fridge is heavenly and also a bit dangerous. I'm tempted to grab one at all hours of the day. Seriously, I was in bed the other night and almost got up to heat up one of these bad boys. Luckily, I stayed in bed and told myself I could have mac and cheese for breakfast in the morning. Whatever works, right?

And with that, here are some super useful tips from Chris Coombs about cooking with Hood Cream:

Don't store cream in the door of your refrigerator; store it as far back in your fridge as possible. It needs to stay nice and cold and if it's in the door of your fridge, it will be exposed to warm air every time you open the fridge.
The fresher the cream, the better. Don't buy more cream than you need.
When adding cream to hot soups and sauces, only add it at the very end. Cooking it for too long at too high of a temperature will cause it to curdle.

Don't forget to visit the Hood Cream website for more awesome recipes that are perfect for the holidays!

How do you use cream in your holiday cooking and baking?

📖 Recipe