Why it works: Cheese and butter 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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make and shape the dough
Mix the grated cheese, melted butter, cold water, and salt in a bowl.
Gradually add flour until the mixture forms a dough.
Roll the dough thin, like pie crust.
Cut into strips ½ inch wide.
Bake
Place on a baking sheet and bake until golden.
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.
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cheese + flourtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,860 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
- Grated cheese
- Provides flavor and fat, and helps bind the dough as it melts.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and helps the straws brown in the oven.
- Flour
- Provides structure so the dough holds together when rolled and cut.
- Cold water
- Moistens the dough so the flour hydrates and it can form a workable dough.
The step that matters
Gradually add flour until the mixture forms a dough. Adding flour gradually lets you stop once the dough comes together. Too much flour makes the straws dry and tough, while too little leaves a sticky dough that is hard to roll thin.
“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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