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Dessert

Minnie's Cheese Straws

A baked cheese-filled dough snack made with flour, lard, egg white, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,655 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Minnie's Cheese Straws

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt three times.

  2. Cut lard into the flour mixture until crumbly.

  3. Beat the egg white and fold it into the lard and flour mixture.

  4. Add water gradually until the dough is stiff.

Layer and shape

  1. Roll out the dough into three parts, slightly thicker than pie crust.

  2. Sprinkle grated cheese and a little salt over two parts.

  3. Layer the parts, placing the plain dough on top, and press lightly with a rolling pin.

  4. Cut into strips ½ inch wide and 4 inches long.

Bake

  1. 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. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + cheesetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
Lard
Cut into the flour to create a tender, flaky texture in the dough.
Egg white
Adds structure and helps bind the dough as it is folded in.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda to help it rise.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and browns during baking.

The step that matters

Adding the water gradually until the dough is stiff. Too much water develops gluten and toughens the dough, while too little leaves it crumbly and hard to roll. Adding it slowly lets you stop at the right consistency.

“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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