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Dessert

Cheese Straws

Cheese Straws are thin pastry strips topped with grated cheese, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine butter, flour, and salt until thoroughly mixed.

  2. Add ice water and continue mixing until well combined.

  3. Roll the dough and refrigerate until cold and stiff.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough very thin, cut into strips, and spread with grated cheese.

  2. Pinch the edges together to seal.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until lightly golden.

  4. Brush with beaten egg yolk and sprinkle with more grated cheese.

  5. Return to the oven for a few minutes until cheese is melted.

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. Butter + flourtop 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 + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Provides fat that keeps the dough tender and flaky as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once it is mixed with liquid.
Ice water
Hydrates the flour while keeping the dough cold so it stays flaky.
Egg yolk
Brushed on top to promote golden browning and a glossy finish.
Grated cheese
Melts into the straws, adding savory flavor and richness.

The step that matters

Refrigerate the dough until cold and stiff. Chilling firms the butter so it stays in pieces; as it bakes, it releases steam that creates flaky layers. Warm, soft dough becomes greasy and tough.

“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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