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Snack

Cheese Straws

Cheese straws are thin strips of cheese pastry, baked until brown and served as a snack.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Straws

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the flour, bread crumbs, and grated cheese, then mix thoroughly.

  3. Season with salt, white pepper, and cayenne, then add the milk.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough to ¼ inch thick, then cut into strips ¼ inch wide and 6 inches long.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until brown.

  3. Cut a ring from the dough and bake it alongside the straws.

  4. Slip the ring over the straws to hold them in place when serving.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that makes the dough short and tender.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the straws together.
Grated cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and browns during baking.
Bread crumbs
Add body and soften the texture of the dough.
Milk
Adds moisture so the dough comes together.

The step that matters

Bake until brown. Cheese and fat brown as they bake, and the straws crisp as they dry out. Overbaking turns the cheese bitter and the straws brittle, so watch the color closely.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, bread, pepper, milk, cheese):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, bread, pepper, milk, cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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