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Dessert

Cheese Straws

Cheese Straws are baked strips of dough made with flour, butter, cheese, eggs, cayenne pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese 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

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the flour and butter, rubbing them together to form a smooth paste.

  3. Add the grated cheese, egg yolks, and beaten egg white. Season with cayenne pepper and salt, then mix thoroughly.

  4. Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick on a floured surface.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut into narrow strips, about 4 to 5 inches long, and place on a well‑buttered baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 5 minutes or until golden brown.

  3. Serve hot, being careful not to break them when removing from the pan.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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
Forms the structure of the dough so the straws hold their shape.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dough tender and rich when rubbed into the flour.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, and helps the straws brown.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, binding the dough and tenderizing its crumb.
Egg white
Adds structure and helps bind the dough so it holds together when shaped.

The step that matters

Removing the straws from the pan. The straws are delicate and brittle when hot, so they can break if handled roughly. Letting them firm slightly in the pan before lifting helps keep them intact.

“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.

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