Home › Croquettes › Cheese Straws
Cheese Straws
1 cup grated American cheese 1 cup flour 1 teaspoon Royal Baking Powder 1/16 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1/4 teaspoon paprika 1 egg 2 tablespoons milk Mix together cheese, sifted flour, baking powder, cayenne pepper and paprika; add beaten egg; mix well; add milk enough to make a stiff dough. (If cheese is dry, more milk will be needed.) Roll out 1/4 inch thick, on floured board; cut into strips 5 inches long and 1/4 inch wide. Bake in hot oven 15 minutes. Serve with salads.
A short, sharp cheese biscuit dough with no butter in it at all — the fat comes entirely from the cheese, which makes the choice of cheese the whole recipe.
- "American cheese" is not the sliced kindIn a book of this vintage the term means plain domestic factory cheddar, firm enough to grate on a box grater. Use a sharp aged cheddar; processed slices will not grate and will weep oil in the oven.
- Hot ovenIn books of this period "hot oven" is conventionally read as somewhere around 400-450F. At that heat thin quarter-inch straws may well be done before the stated quarter hour; start checking at 8 minutes and pull them when the edges are golden and the surface is set.
- The dough is stiff on purposeAdd the milk a teaspoon at a time. A wet dough spreads into ribbons rather than straws, and a dry aged cheese genuinely will take the extra liquid the recipe allows for.
- Royal Baking PowderAny modern double-acting baking powder, measured the same. Its job here is a slight lift and crumb, not rise; the straws stay dense.
- No salt is listedThe recipe leans on the cheese for seasoning. Taste the grated cheese and add a pinch of salt to the flour if it seems mild.
- Cayenne measurementA sixteenth of a teaspoon is a small pinch between finger and thumb. It should register as warmth behind the cheese, not heat; the paprika is there mostly for colour.
- Cutting and handlingRoll on a well-floured board, cut with a knife or pastry wheel, and lift the strips with a bench scraper — they tear easily before baking and snap easily after. Space them slightly apart on an ungreased or parchment-lined sheet.
- Yield and keepingSeveral dozen straws from this quantity, depending on how closely they are cut. They are best the day they are baked; crisp them for a few minutes in a moderate oven if they soften.
Cheese straws belong to the English savoury course — the small, salty dish served after the sweet in nineteenth-century dining — and crossed to American tables as a salad and soup accompaniment, which is exactly how this book directs them. The classical version is made from puff or short pastry rolled with grated cheese; the naming of Royal Baking Powder in the ingredient list points to a promotional cookbook issued by the Royal Baking Powder Company, whose formulas called for the product by name.