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Cheese Straws

Savoury pastry sticks made from cream cheese dough flavoured with cayenne pepper and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

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.

Make the dough

  1. Mix cream cheese, cayenne pepper, egg, flour, and water until well combined.

  2. If the cheese is not soft enough, grind it before mixing.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin.

  2. Cut the dough with a pastry cutter.

  3. Shape into rings and fill with straws after baking.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream cheese + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,549 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Cream cheese + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream cheese + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,195 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Cream cheese
Provides richness and moisture, giving the dough a tender, flavorful body.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the soft dough's structure, holding the shape during rolling and baking.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that flavors the cheese dough.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Thin dough bakes through and turns crisp and golden. Thick dough stays doughy in the centre and browns unevenly, so keep the sheet even in thickness.

“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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