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Dessert

Cheese Straws

Cheese Straws are baked strips of cheese, butter, breadcrumbs, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter 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 moderately cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Rub the butter into the flour.

  3. Add the breadcrumbs, cheese, cayenne, and salt.

  4. Mix in just enough cold water to form a stiff paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the paste out to about ½ inch thick.

  2. Cut into strips about 3 inches long and ½ inch wide.

  3. Place the strips on a greased baking sheet.

  4. Bake until crisp, about 30 minutes.

  5. Serve hot or cold.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Rubbed into the flour, it coats flour particles and makes the dough short and crisp.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the paste together and lets it be rolled and cut.
Cheese
Adds savoury flavour and fat, and helps the straws brown slightly as they bake.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, giving the straws a crumbly, crisp texture.
Cold water
Binds the dry ingredients into a stiff paste; keeping it cold limits gluten development and keeps the dough tender.

The step that matters

Mixing in the cold water. Adding too much water makes the paste sticky and hard to cut, and overworking it develops gluten that toughens the straws. Add it gradually, just until the paste holds together.

“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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