Skip to main content
Dessert

Cheese Straws

Cheese straws are strips of cheese and flour baked with salt, cayenne, pepper, butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Johnson, Vt. Congregational church. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cheese and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,861 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Straws

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix one cupful grated cheese with one cupful flour, two teaspoonfuls of salt, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and a piece of butter the size of an egg.

  2. Add enough cold water to enable rolling the paste.

  3. Cut the dough into strips 7 inches long and 1/2 inch wide.

  4. Place the strips on tins and bake for 5 or 10 minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

580Calories
20 gProtein
11 gFat
98 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Cheese1 oz (28g) cheddar113
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 Johnson, Vt. Congregational church. [from old catalog]. 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 + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cheese + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,860 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once water is added.
Butter (in the method)
Adds fat that keeps the dough short and tender rather than tough.

The step that matters

Add enough cold water to enable rolling the paste.. Too little water leaves the dough crumbly and hard to roll, while too much makes it sticky and tough. Cold water keeps the butter in small pieces, which helps the straws stay tender and flaky.

“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