Why it works: Cheese and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cheese Sticks
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix the flour and shortening until crumbly.
Add the grated cheese and mix well.
Gradually add milk to form a stiff dough.
Shape and bake
Roll the dough to about ½ inch thick.
Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt over the dough.
Cut the dough into narrow strips.
Bake until light brown, ensuring they are thoroughly done before removing from the oven.
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.
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Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + cheesetop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,860 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the dough together as it bakes.
- Shortening
- Adds fat that makes the pastry crumbly and tender rather than tough.
- Grated cheese
- Adds rich flavor and fat, and browns as it bakes.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour so the mixture binds into a stiff dough.
The step that matters
Bake until thoroughly done. Light brown color alone does not show the strips are fully baked through. Cheese-rich dough can brown on the outside while the center stays doughy, so the cook should check that the strips are cooked all the way through before removing them from 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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