Name: Cheese Straws and Biscuits
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; ½ cup grated cheese; ½ cup flour; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; ¼ teaspoon dry mustard; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 egg yolk; 2 tablespoons milk

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

In a bowl, mix the butter and cheese until smooth.
Add cayenne pepper, dry mustard, and salt; mix well.
Stir in the flour, egg yolk, and milk to form a cookie dough.
Chill the dough until firm, then shape into strips about 3-4 inches long.

Bake

Place on a baking sheet and bake until golden.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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 it bakes.
Grated cheese: Adds savory flavor and fat, and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Flour: Forms the structure that holds the dough together and sets as it bakes.
Egg yolk: Binds the dough and adds richness and color.

The step that matters

Chill the dough until firm. Cold dough holds its shape when cut into strips, so the straws do not spread or lose their defined edges in the oven.

Swap the mustard

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

Potatofits better
Capsicumfits better
Asparagusfits better
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.