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 the dough
In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, flour, melted butter, baking powder, and salt.
Roll out the dough to ¼ inch thick.
Cut the dough into strips that are 6 inches long.
Bake
Bake in the preheated oven 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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Flour + buttertop 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).
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
- Grated cheese
- Adds savoury flavour and fat, and helps the straws brown.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the dough together when rolled and cut.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the straws rise and lighten.
The step that matters
Bake until golden. Browning comes from Maillard reactions between proteins and sugars in the flour and cheese, so golden colour is the best sign the straws are done. Pulling them too early leaves them pale and soft, while overbaking makes them dry and bitter.
“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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