Skip to main content
Dessert

Cheese Straws

A baked snack of flour, cayenne pepper, Parmesan cheese, and egg yolk formed into rings and strips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,322 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cheese Straws

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, cayenne, and Parmesan cheese.

  3. Moisten the mixture with the egg yolk and work it into a smooth paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the paste on a floured surface to ⅛ inch thick, 5 inches wide, and 5 inches long.

  2. Cut the paste into small rings and strips.

  3. Place the shapes on greased baking sheets.

  4. Bake until light 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. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parmesan cheese + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,368 recipes

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

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parmesan cheesetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,944 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the paste together as it bakes.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Egg yolk
Binds the flour and cheese into a smooth paste and adds richness.

The step that matters

Working the egg yolk into a smooth paste. If the dough is too dry, it will crumble when rolled; if too wet, it becomes sticky and hard to shape. Mixing until smooth ensures even hydration so the straws roll and bake evenly.

“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.

More cheese straws recipes

Cayenne 11 See all 284 →

You might also like

Cheese BallsCheese Balls97 recipesCheese CakeCheese Cake55 recipesCream CheeseCream Cheese46 recipesLemon PieLemon Pie37 recipes