Cheese Straws (1924)
Reader ratingsPie pastry rolled thin with grated cheese and paprika, folded and rolled three times, then cut in long strips and baked light brown: cheese straws from 1924.
- Recipe makes
- About 150 straws, 8 servings
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
Chill the pastry for 30 minutes before the first rolling, and let the baked straws cool for 10 minutes before you lift them.
Cheese straws of pastry, grated cheese and paprika.
The story behind the recipe
The Woman’s World Book of Sunday Dinners, published in Chicago in 1924, gives cheese straws in three sentences, as a way to use the pastry left over from making pies. The trimmings are rolled thin, scattered with grated cheese and dusted with paprika, folded and rolled out again, and the cheese and paprika added once more. After three times, the pastry is cut in long narrow strips and baked “a light brown.”
Where did cheese straws go on a 1920s menu?
With the salad, and with the drinks. The same book’s goose dinner for the forty-eighth Sunday sets “Head Lettuce Salad” and “Cheese Straws” side by side, and the menu around them begins with a fruit cocktail of grapefruit, orange and white grapes and closes with salted almonds and after-dinner mints. Fannie Farmer’s Christmas dinner of 1918 has “Dressed Lettuce with Cheese Straws.” In London, Nina Toye and A. H. Adair listed “cheese straws” with the olives and salted nuts that should go round with the cocktails, in their book of 1925; the rest of their list is in What Did You Nibble With a Cocktail in the 1920s?
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
The book assumes pie pastry already made, so we start with a simple butter pastry. Sharp cheddar gives the most flavor; grate it as fine as you can so it presses into the dough. The folding and rolling three times builds the cheese into thin layers. Keep the strips about the width of a pencil, and watch the oven at the end, since the cheese browns fast.
A dish of Salted Almonds (1918) beside them gives the tray two of the London book’s salty things.
When making pies roll thin any remaining crust, sprinkle plentifully with grated cheese and dust with paprika. Fold, press edges together, roll out, add grated cheese and paprika as before. Do this 3 times, then cut in long narrow strips and bake a light brown.
Recipe makes: About 150 straws, 8 servings
Ingredients
For about 150 straws, 8 servings. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for about 150 straws, 8 servings.
- All-purpose flour1 1/2 cups
- Salt1/2 tsp
- Cold unsalted butter, diced1/2 cup
- Ice water4 tbsp
- Finely grated sharp cheddar1 cup
- Sweet paprika1 1/2 tsp
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1½ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ cup cold unsalted butter, diced
- 4 tbsp ice water
- 1 cup finely grated sharp cheddar
- 1½ tsp sweet paprika
Equipment
- Mixing bowl
- Rolling pin
- Sharp knife or pastry wheel
- Two baking sheets, lined with parchment
Instructions
Mix the flour and salt in the bowl. Rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Stir in the ice water with a fork until the dough just holds together. Flatten into a square, wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
Heat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
On a floured board, roll the pastry into a thin rectangle. Sprinkle a third of the cheese over it and dust with a third of the paprika. Fold it in half, press the edges together and roll it out again.
Repeat twice more with the rest of the cheese and paprika, rolling the last time to a rectangle about ⅛ inch thick.
Cut into strips about ¼ inch wide and 5 inches long. Lay them on the baking sheets, a little apart.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until light brown. Let them cool on the sheets for 10 minutes, then lift them off with a spatula.
Nutrition
250calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 150 straws, 8 servings
- Servings
- 8
Estimated per serving from USDA FoodData Central values for flour, butter and cheddar cheese.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Keep the cheese at about two thirds of the flour by volume. For a larger batch, roll the pastry in two pieces.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
They keep for a few days in a closed tin; warm them for a few minutes in a low oven to crisp them again. Contains wheat (gluten) and milk.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After Cheese Straws, in Woman’s World Book of Sunday Dinners (Chicago: Woman’s World Magazine Co., 1924)
Recipe details
- Course
- Starter
- Region
- American
- Era
- Interwar
- Source decade
- 1920s
- Main ingredient
- Milk & cream
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- Dinner party