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Dessert

Cheese Straws

Cheese straws are baked strips of cheese‑flavored dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,655 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Straws

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Place the flour on a clean surface and make a well in the center.

  2. Add the cream, grated cheese, coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, and beaten egg yolks into the well.

  3. Mix the ingredients with your fingertips until a smooth paste forms.

  4. Roll out the paste to a thickness of ¼ inch.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut into narrow straws and place on a buttered baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately on a hot napkin.

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. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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
Forms the structure of the dough so the straws hold their shape when baked.
Egg yolks
Add richness and binding so the paste holds together and bakes tender.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Cream
Adds moisture and fat, making the paste smooth and easy to roll.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. Baking only until light brown keeps the straws crisp and mild. Overbaking dries them out and can scorch the cheese, which turns them bitter.

“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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