Skip to main content
Dessert

How We Cook in Tennessee

Cheese Straws are strips of dough made with grated cheese, flour, egg yolk, cayenne, and water, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jackson (Tenn.). First Baptist Church. The Silver Thimble Society · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cheese and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

How We Cook in Tennessee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix flour, grated cheese, cayenne, and egg yolk together.

  2. Add enough water to make a stiff dough.

  3. Roll the dough to a quarter-inch thickness.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut the rolled dough into narrow strips.

  2. Place the strips in a baking tin and press each end to prevent contraction.

  3. Bake the strips until they are light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the cheese straws with salad.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

922Calories
36 gProtein
26 gFat
134 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Cheese1 oz (28g) cheddar113
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cracker5 saltine crackers (15g)66
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
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.

By Jackson (Tenn.). First Baptist Church. The Silver Thimble Society. 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 + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Forms the dough's structure so the strips hold their shape while baking.
Grated cheese
Adds the main flavour and fat, and browns during baking.
Eggs
Binds the dough and helps it set firm as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake the strips until light brown. Cheese browns quickly and can turn bitter if overbaked, so the light brown colour is the cue to take them out. Checking early keeps the flavour mild and the texture crisp.

“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