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Dessert

Cheese Straws

Cheese Straws are baked sticks made from flour, bread crumbs, cheese, butter, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Straws

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the flour, bread crumbs, grated cheese, and seasonings; mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the milk until combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the mixture to ½ inch thick and cut into strips 4 inches wide and 5 inches long.

  2. Shape one strip into a ring to hold the straws in place for serving.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the dough hold together and brown during baking.
Flour
Provides structure so the dough rolls out and holds its cut shape.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and fat, and helps the straws brown in the oven.
Fresh bread crumbs
Add body and a tender texture to the dough.

The step that matters

Baking until brown. Baking until the straws turn brown drives the browning reactions that give flavour and colour. Pulling them too early leaves them pale and doughy, while overbaking makes them hard and 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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