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Snack

Cheese Straws and Biscuits

A baked snack of cheese‑flavored dough shaped into strips and rounds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cheese Straws and Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter and cheese until smooth.

  3. Add cayenne pepper, dry mustard, and salt, then mix well.

  4. Stir in the flour, egg yolk, and milk to form a cookie dough.

  5. Chill the dough until firm.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into strips about 3‑4 inches long, place on a baking sheet, and bake until golden brown.

  2. For biscuits, roll out the dough to ¼ inch thick, cut into 1½ inch rounds, prick with a fork, and bake until nicely colored.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides fat that makes the dough rich and tender while binding it together.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, and browns during baking.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together once baked.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the dough.

The step that matters

Chilling the dough until firm. A cold, firm dough holds its shape when cut or cut into strips and spreads less in the oven. Skipping the chill can leave shapes soft and misshapen.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cheese, flour, pepper, egg, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cheese, flour, pepper, egg, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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