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Dessert

Cayenne Cheese Straws

A baked pastry made with flour, butter, parmesan cheese, cayenne pepper, salt, and egg yolk, cut into twisted strips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cayenne 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, butter, parmesan cheese, salt, and cayenne pepper into a paste with the egg yolk.

  3. Roll out the mixture to about ¼ inch thick and cut into strips 5 inches long and ⅓ inch wide.

  4. Twist each strip like a paper spiral and place them on a lightly floured baking sheet.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until crisp but not browned.

  2. Store in a tin to keep fresh and serve cold on a glass dish.

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 + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 structure that holds the dough together and lets the straws set crisp.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the straws a tender, short texture and rich flavor.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, and helps the dough hold its shape.
Egg yolk
Binds the dough into a paste and adds richness to the texture.

The step that matters

Bake until crisp but not browned. Baking too long or too hot will brown the cheese and dry the straws, making them bitter and brittle. Stop when they feel crisp, since they keep firming as they cool.

“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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