Skip to main content
Snack

Cheese Straws

Cheese Straws are baked strips of flour, butter, Parmesan cheese, egg yolk, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parmesan cheese and butter 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 ↓

Cheese Straws

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Rub the butter into the flour.

  3. Add the grated cheese, a little salt, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Mix into a paste with the egg yolk.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the paste to ⅛ inch thick and 5 inches wide.

  2. Cut into narrow strips.

  3. Bake for about 10 minutes.

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. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 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

Butter
Rubbed into the flour, it coats flour particles and makes the dough short and crisp.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the straws together as they bake.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and browning, and its fat helps keep the straws tender.
Egg yolk
Binds the dry ingredients into a paste and adds richness to the dough.

The step that matters

Rolling the paste to an even thickness. Dough rolled to a consistent ⅛ inch bakes evenly and crisps at the same rate. Thick spots stay soft while thin spots over-brown or burn.

“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

FrittersFritters56 recipesCrisp CrackersCrisp Crackers7 recipes