French Cheese Puffs
On a roll with the French cuisine this week! First the French onion soup and now these two-bite savory gougères! If you’ve never had gougères before, you might be a bit surprised by their unique texture. They’re very different from many other bready side-dishes you might have had and quite unlike my biscuits or garlic cheddar drop biscuits. While those are dense and full, “French cheese puffs” (as they’re often called) are light and airy with gigantic air pockets. If you’ve ever made my cream puffs and sampled a shell before filling it, the texture will be quite familiar to you as both start with a choux pastry base, only rather than filling with pastry cream we’re loading the batter with lots of cheese. Different, but quite delicious. Let’s get to it!
What You Need for Gougères
Gougère dough (batter?) is a basic choux pastry, so you can expect the basic ingredients: water, milk, butter, flour, salt, and eggs in addition to cheese, pepper, and sugar (just a bit). Let’s talk for a second about a few of the ingredients:
Sugar. This will not make the gougères sweet, it simply adds more flavor. Eggs. Large or extra-large eggs will work. It’s best if the eggs are at room temperature, this helps to avoid “shocking” the warm choux mixture and helps the ingredients to combine better.Pepper. A few grates of freshly ground black pepper add nice flavor to the pâte à choux. You can use pre-ground pepper, but the fresh stuff is just so much more robust!Cheese. I use gruyere, which is the classic choice, but I’ve also made this recipe with sharp cheddar and it’s turned out wonderfully.
SAM’S NOTE: Add some garlic! Stir in a clove or two of well-minced garlic with the cheese! This is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Gougères
You’re simply making a basic choux pastry and then adding cheese. If you haven’t done this before, don’t panic, it’s really a fairly simple kitchen basic that even the beginner baker can master with a little practice. Boost your confidence by making perfect gougères, then move on to eclairs for dessert! SAM’S NOTE: Make sure to give the gougères some breathing room on the baking sheet! Otherwise they won’t cook evenly and could collapse after baking.
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Enjoy! Let’s bake together! Make sure to check out the how-to VIDEO in the recipe card!
