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Cheese Straws

Cheese straws are thin strips of cheese-flavoured dough, cut and baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 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. Cream the butter in a mixing bowl.

  2. Add flour, bread crumbs, cheese, salt, and cayenne; mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the milk until combined.

  4. Roll the dough to ¼ inch thick.

Cut and bake

  1. Cut into strips ½ inch wide and 5 inches long.

  2. Place on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until lightly browned.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 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. Butter + cheesetop 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 that makes the dough tender and rich in flavour.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and fat, and helps the straws brown in the oven.
Milk
Moistens the flour so the dough holds together and can be rolled.
Soft bread crumbs
Add body and tenderness to the dough while absorbing some moisture.

The step that matters

Bake until lightly browned. Cheese and flour brown quickly through the Maillard reaction, so the straws can turn from pale to over-browned and dry in a short time. Watch colour rather than only the clock.

“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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