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Baking

Cheese Straws

Cheese Straws are baked, thin dough sticks made with flour, butter, Parmesan, Cheddar, cayenne, salt, egg yolk, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and cheddar cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 592 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. 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. Rub the butter into the flour until crumbly.

  3. Add the cheeses, cayenne, and salt.

  4. Bind the mixture into a stiff paste with the egg yolk and enough water.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thinly and cut into straws and rings.

  2. Bake for 5 to 7 minutes until golden.

  3. Thread the straws through the rings and serve hot.

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. Parmesan cheese + cheddar cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together592 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheddar cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,436 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

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

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once it is bound with liquid.
Butter
Coats the flour particles and adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Cheddar cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, giving the straws a richer cheese taste.
Egg yolk
Binds the dough together and adds richness and color.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thinly. Thin dough dries out and crisps evenly in a hot oven, while thick dough stays soft in the middle. Uneven thickness makes some straws burn before others are cooked through.

“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

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