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
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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make and shape the dough
In a bowl, mix the butter, flour, grated cheese, egg, salt, and cayenne until smooth.
Roll out the mixture as thin as possible.
Cut into strips about ¼ inch wide and 3 inches long, and also cut out rings.
Bake and serve
Bake for about 10 minutes.
Once done, hang the rings on sticks.
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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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,861 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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
- Adds fat that makes the dough rich and tender.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the dough together when rolled and cut.
- Grated soft cheese
- Adds savoury flavour and fat, and helps the straws brown in the oven.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
The step that matters
Roll out the mixture as thin as possible. Thin dough bakes quickly and crisply. Thick pieces stay soft and dense in the middle, so the thickness should be even and as thin as the dough allows.
“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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