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Cheese Fingers

Cheese fingers are small baked cheese pastries made with cheese, flour, butter, baking powder, salt, cayenne, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cheese Fingers

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk 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. In a bowl, mix the cheese, flour, butter, baking powder, salt, and cayenne.

  2. Add just enough milk to form a stiff paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut it into strips about 3 inches long.

  2. Shape the strips into rounds and place them on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake for 5 minutes until they are a delicate 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and helps the dough brown as it bakes.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and gives it body.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and contributes to a crisp, short texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the dough rise and turn light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and binds the mixture into a stiff, workable paste.

The step that matters

Add just enough milk to form a stiff paste. Too much milk makes the dough sticky and hard to shape, while too little leaves it crumbly. Flour hydrates gradually, so adding liquid slowly lets you reach a firm dough that holds its shape in the oven.

“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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