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Dessert

Cheese Straws

Cheese straws are baked sticks of butter, flour, cheese, eggs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the dough

  1. Rub the butter into the flour until well combined.

  2. Grate the Parmesan and Cheddar cheese into the mixture.

  3. Add salt, pepper, and the eggs, mixing to form a paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the paste into straws and place on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10 minutes until golden 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. 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. Butter + flourtop 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).

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, it coats the flour particles and gives the straws a short, tender crumb.
Vienna flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the paste its structure, holding the shaped straws together.
Parmesan cheese
Adds concentrated savory flavor and, as it melts and browns, contributes to the golden color.
Cheddar cheese
Adds rich, savory flavor and fat, helping the straws brown and taste cheesy.
Eggs
Bind the mixture into a paste and add structure and richness to the baked straws.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Cheese contains sugars and proteins that brown in the oven, but the straws can go from golden to bitter quickly. Watching color, not just the clock, prevents scorching.

“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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