Skip to main content
Dessert

Cheese Straws

Cheese Straws are baked strips of cheese and flour dough seasoned with salt, cayenne, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Straws

three dozen straws

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Grate one cup of good cheese.

  2. Combine one and one-half cups of flour, a pinch of salt, three tablespoons of melted butter, a dash of cayenne pepper, and enough milk to make a right consistency.

  3. Work the mixture together thoroughly but do not handle more than necessary.

  4. Roll the dough thin as pastry.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut into strips three-quarter inch wide and about eight inches long.

  2. Bake in an oven at bread heat until light brown.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

682Calories
20 gProtein
22 gFat
98 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Cheese1 oz (28g) cheddar113
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the dough together once rolled and baked.
Melted butter
Adds fat that makes the dough tender and crisp rather than tough.

The step that matters

Working the dough. Overworking flour dough develops gluten, which makes the straws tough and hard rather than short and crisp. Mix only until the dough comes together.

“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.

More cheese straws recipes

Cayenne 11 See all 284 →

You might also like

Cheese BallsCheese Balls97 recipesCheese CakeCheese Cake55 recipesCream CheeseCream Cheese46 recipesLemon PieLemon Pie37 recipes