Skip to main content
Baking

Cheese Straws

Cheese Straws are baked, thin strips of dough made with flour, butter, cheese, mustard flour, cayenne pepper, salt, egg whites, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

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 well combined.

  3. Mix in the cheese, mustard flour, cayenne, and salt.

  4. Beat the egg whites with the cold water and stir in enough to form a firm paste.

  5. Knead the paste well, then roll it out to ⅛ inch thick.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut the dough into straw-like strips, about 5 inches long.

  2. Bake for about 5 minutes until pale brown.

  3. Serve hot or cold, and store in a dry place.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 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

Dried flour
Forms the main structure of the dough as its proteins and starch set when baked.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the straws tender and crisp rather than tough.
Parmesan or gruyère cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Egg whites
Bind the dough into a firm paste and help the straws hold their shape.

The step that matters

Knead the paste well, then roll it out to ⅛ inch thick. Kneading develops gluten so the paste holds together, and an even thickness means the thin strips bake at the same rate, avoiding burnt edges or raw centres.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cheese, pepper, 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 →

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes