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Cheese Straws

Cheese straws are baked pastry sticks made with butter, flour, cheese, mustard, cayenne, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

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 the dough

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

  2. Rub the butter into the flour.

  3. Add the cheese, mustard, and cayenne to taste.

  4. Mix with the eggs to form a stiff paste.

  5. Roll and fold the paste like pastry.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out to about ½ inch thick.

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

  3. Bake on a floured tray for about 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Pile the straws crosswise on a folded napkin on a hot dish.

  2. Let them toast before the fire 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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a short, tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the paste together as it bakes.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the mixture into a stiff paste and help set the straws as they bake.

The step that matters

Rolling out to an even thickness. Uneven thickness makes some straws burn or stay soft while others are done. Cutting strips of equal size and thickness lets them bake at the same rate.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cheese, flour, egg. 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.

More cheese straws recipes

Cayenne 11 See all 284 →

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