Skip to main content
Dessert

Cheese Straws

Cheese straws are baked strips of dough made with corn starch, flour, cheese, butter, and egg.

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

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift together corn starch, flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Add grated cheese, soft butter, paprika, and the egg. Mix until combined, then add enough milk or water to form a very stiff dough.

  3. Knead the dough by folding it over to create layers.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to a ¾ inch thickness and square the edges with a knife.

  2. Cut into strips 4 to 5 inches long and ½ inch wide.

  3. Place on a greased pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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

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

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

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

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the straws together as they bake.
Corn starch
Makes the texture short and tender by diluting the gluten from the flour.
Grated cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Soft butter
Adds fat that makes the dough tender and crumbly rather than tough.
Egg
Binds the dough together and adds richness and structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the straws rise slightly and stay light.

The step that matters

Kneading by folding. Folding the dough to form layers builds some structure for flakiness, but overworking it toughens the texture. Fold gently and only until the layers hold 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 recipesCorn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCheese CakeCheese Cake55 recipes