It’s a piece of cake to make these light and crispy cheese straws, which are inevitable accesories of beer drinking with friends. Just knead a dough, roll it out, brush with egg yolk, sprinkle cheese and caraway seeds over the top, cut into rectangles and let them go in the oven. That’s all. It sounds easy, doesn’t it?
As you can see, yeast is listed among the ingredients, which makes the sticks light and airy by increasing them in size. However, you don’t need to let the dough rise for long, yeast can exert its beneficient effects during those fifteen minutes the straws spend in the oven.
Ingredients:
- 500 g (~4 cups) flour
- 2 egg yolks
- 200 g (~7 oz) cold butter
- 250 g (~8 3/4 oz) sour cream
- 10-15 g (~2-3 tsp) salt
- 25 g (~3/4 oz) fresh yeast (2 1/2 tsp dry yeast)
- 200 g (~7 oz) cheese, grated
- 1-2 tbsp caraway seeds
- 1 egg for the egg wash
Sift flour in a bowl. Combine flour, salt and yeast. Rub the cold butter cubes into the flour. Add egg yolks and sour cream, and quickly knead until a pliant ball forms. Leave it to rest for 10 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 220°C / 428°F.
On a floured surface roll out the dough into a 3-4 mm / 1/8 inch thin rectangle. Brush beaten egg onto the top, then scatter grated cheese and caraway seeds over it.
Cut into 5×1 cm / 2×0.5 inch pieces and place them onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
I think the 4 cups of flour should be 2 cups I made this and it was too dry and flat. I will try it again this time with less flour, otherwise tasted good.
Sorry if you found them too dry, I’ve made these straws several times and there wasn’t such problem. I checked again and the converter says that 500 g of flour equal 4 cups. If you want to decrease the quantity, reduce it only by 20% (100 g or 3/4 cup), otherwise you won’t be able to knead it into a dough.
Hi Zsuzsa, After revising the recipe I realised that the quantity of sour cream was wrong, cause 250 grams equal 2 cups instead of 1. So, you don’t need to decrease the quantity of flour next time, just add one more cup of sour cream. Mea culpa.
What type of grated cheese is recommended?
Hi Ruth, You can use Port Salut cheese or any other semi-soft cow’s milk cheese of a mild flavour.