Uploaded January 2021 | Updated September 2026, 14 hours ago
This is a delightfully simple recipe for party snacks, or as they used to be called, hors d’oeuvres. As long as you can make two similarly-shaped pieces to stack together, you can make some cheese straws. This recipe uses a third of a batch of our puff pastry recipe, but you can use however much you would like to use.
Egg wash holds everything together. We chose to put some mustard in ours. Preferrably a grainy or rustic mustard for visual appeal, but any will work, or you can leave it out, in which case consider adding Tabasco. Also, I sliced my straws so that when wound they would become nearly cylindrical (hence straws). If they are sliced a little wider they will be more like twists, but will still work. There will be fewer, but they (16-18 or so) will very likely fit all on one pan. If you’re making narrow twists and want to get more to take a batch further, cut the panel in half before stripping, so that there are twice as many which are half as long. The ~10 inch long straws we make in this recipe are each a substantial snack, though they look excellent in a pint glass.
Twisting these up can seem like a hassle, and like it’s not going very well, but the truth is that it’s fairly forgiving in the end. A little practice will show you how to keep the twists fairly even. Try twisting both ends in opposite directions. Also, I found that sticking the ends down to the silicone baking sheet worked pretty well to keep them from coming unwound.
For the choice of cheese: it is okay to use only hard cheese – using twice as much, possibly of two types. As for aromatic cheese choices – we happened to have some truffle-infused monterey jack hanging around which though it may sound bizarre actually has worked well in many contexts. I could also recommend your favorite smelly cheese: asiago, muenster, fontina, taleggio, gorgonzola. If you can’t grate it, crumble or smear it.
Makes 22-24 straws, which might not quite fit on a single sheet pan.
Equipment:
• one or two sheet pans, lined with silicone baking sheet or parchment paper
• small mixing bowl or large measuring cup
• fork, for beating egg
• pastry brush
• cheese grater and/or Microplane grater
Ingredients:
1/3 batch blitz puff pastry 8-12 oz, in a long rectangle
1 ea egg
1 Tbsp mustard or hot sauce to taste
25 g hard cheese we used Beemster XO
25-50 g aromatic cheese we used truffle jack
Procedure:
1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. In a small mixing bowl or large measuring cup, beat the egg with the mustard or hot sauce.
3. Roll out the puff pastry on a floured work surface until it has more than doubled in area, into a long rectangle which may be split and stacked.
4. Split the rolled dough into two equal rectangles.
5. Choose one to start with, and paint it with the seasoned egg wash.
6. Cover the washed dough panel with grated aromatic cheese (if using two kinds of cheese). Trapping the aromatic cheese between the layers will help to preserve its aroma.
7. Carefully, using a rolling pin if need be, lift the second panel of dough and place it atop the first, and press down to ensure that the egg wash below the cheese is helping to glue the two panels of dough together. Painting the bottom of the dough panel is possible but difficult; doing so is not necessary.
8. Once the two panels are stacked and pressed out, use the rolling pin to roll it out just a little bit, to ensure the two panels are well and truly married together. The dough panels usually shrink when they are handled; this is an opportunity to get the lost area back.
9. Paint the top of the stack with the seasoned egg wash.
10. Grate the hard cheese all over the top of the stack. Try to make the layer as even as possible.
11. Optionally cover the dough with a sheet of wax paper or parchment before once again rolling it out with the rolling pin, to ensure the new layer of cheese is pressed well into the egg-washed dough.
12. Remove the paper, if you used some to keep the rolling pin clean.
13. Slice the dough along its short dimension, into strips about 1/2” – 3/4” wide, to get roughly cylindrical straws.
14. Twist up each strip of cheesy dough, and lay them out on the lined sheet pan. Press the gooey, eggy ends of the strip into the pan to make them stick.
15. Place the pan in the center of the oven and bake for 25 min or so, until the straws are starting to color.
16. Allow to cool before eating.
Music: bensound.com/royalty-free-music
This is a delightfully simple recipe for party snacks, or as they used to be called, hors d’oeuvres. As long as you can make two similarly-shaped pieces to stack together, you can make some cheese straws. This recipe uses a third of a batch of our puff pastry recipe, but you can use however much you would like to use.
Egg wash holds everything together. We chose to put some mustard in ours. Preferrably a grainy or rustic mustard for visual appeal, but any will work, or you can leave it out, in which case consider adding Tabasco. Also, I sliced my straws so that when wound they would become nearly cylindrical (hence straws). If they are sliced a little wider they will be more like twists, but will still work. There will be fewer, but they (16-18 or so) will very likely fit all on one pan. If you’re making narrow twists and want to get more to take a batch further, cut the panel in half before stripping, so that there are twice as many which are half as long. The ~10 inch long straws we make in this recipe are each a substantial snack, though they look excellent in a pint glass.
Twisting these up can seem like a hassle, and like it’s not going very well, but the truth is that it’s fairly forgiving in the end. A little practice will show you how to keep the twists fairly even. Try twisting both ends in opposite directions. Also, I found that sticking the ends down to the silicone baking sheet worked pretty well to keep them from coming unwound.
For the choice of cheese: it is okay to use only hard cheese – using twice as much, possibly of two types. As for aromatic cheese choices – we happened to have some truffle-infused monterey jack hanging around which though it may sound bizarre actually has worked well in many contexts. I could also recommend your favorite smelly cheese: asiago, muenster, fontina, taleggio, gorgonzola. If you can’t grate it, crumble or smear it.
Makes 22-24 straws, which might not quite fit on a single sheet pan.
Equipment:
• one or two sheet pans, lined with silicone baking sheet or parchment paper
• small mixing bowl or large measuring cup
• fork, for beating egg
• pastry brush
• cheese grater and/or Microplane grater
Ingredients:
1/3 batch blitz puff pastry 8-12 oz, in a long rectangle
1 ea egg
1 Tbsp mustard or hot sauce to taste
25 g hard cheese we used Beemster XO
25-50 g aromatic cheese we used truffle jack
Procedure:
1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. In a small mixing bowl or large measuring cup, beat the egg with the mustard or hot sauce.
3. Roll out the puff pastry on a floured work surface until it has more than doubled in area, into a long rectangle which may be split and stacked.
4. Split the rolled dough into two equal rectangles.
5. Choose one to start with, and paint it with the seasoned egg wash.
6. Cover the washed dough panel with grated aromatic cheese (if using two kinds of cheese). Trapping the aromatic cheese between the layers will help to preserve its aroma.
7. Carefully, using a rolling pin if need be, lift the second panel of dough and place it atop the first, and press down to ensure that the egg wash below the cheese is helping to glue the two panels of dough together. Painting the bottom of the dough panel is possible but difficult; doing so is not necessary.
8. Once the two panels are stacked and pressed out, use the rolling pin to roll it out just a little bit, to ensure the two panels are well and truly married together. The dough panels usually shrink when they are handled; this is an opportunity to get the lost area back.
9. Paint the top of the stack with the seasoned egg wash.
10. Grate the hard cheese all over the top of the stack. Try to make the layer as even as possible.
11. Optionally cover the dough with a sheet of wax paper or parchment before once again rolling it out with the rolling pin, to ensure the new layer of cheese is pressed well into the egg-washed dough.
12. Remove the paper, if you used some to keep the rolling pin clean.
13. Slice the dough along its short dimension, into strips about 1/2” – 3/4” wide, to get roughly cylindrical straws.
14. Twist up each strip of cheesy dough, and lay them out on the lined sheet pan. Press the gooey, eggy ends of the strip into the pan to make them stick.
15. Place the pan in the center of the oven and bake for 25 min or so, until the straws are starting to color.
16. Allow to cool before eating.
Music: bensound.com/royalty-free-music
