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Dessert

Cheese Straws

Cheese straws are baked dough sticks rolled with grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick 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. In a bowl, mix the butter, flour, paprika, dry mustard, salt, and baking powder until crumbly.

  3. Add enough water to form a dough that can be rolled out.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough very thin on a floured surface.

  2. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the rolled dough.

  3. Fold the dough over once and roll it out again.

  4. Cut the dough into straw shapes.

  5. Bake in the preheated oven until lightly golden, being careful not to over-brown.

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

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

  2. Mustard + cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Adds fat that makes the dough short and tender as it bakes.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the rolled dough and cut shapes together.
Grated american cheese
Adds rich flavour and fat, and browns during baking for savoury taste.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to lighten the straws slightly.

The step that matters

Bake until lightly golden. Thin dough with cheese browns quickly, and the sugars and milk proteins in cheese scorch past golden, turning bitter. Watch closely near the end of baking.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, 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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