Amazing Gougeres

Back at Easter (yes, I know that was a while ago), some friends invited us over for a big Easter dinner. Hubby and I were bringing a bunch of stuff,but I wanted to make something out of the ordinary to bring. Since Hubby looooves cheese, Gougeres would be perfect!

I had never made pate a choux before, but David Lebovitz’s recipe made it perfectly easy, and you only need a small handful of ingredients, like the following.

See, you boil some butter and water, with a pinch of salt and cayenne pepper. While your water is starting to boil, you shred some cheese, anything semi-hard, I used gruyere.

Then you take it off the heat, throw in some flour and mix it around.

Then, in your awesomely handy food processor, dump the clump of dough, plus most of the cheese and some fresh herbs, and mix in the food processor until all nice and mixed.

Scrape the sticky mixture of dough into a piping bag, fitted with a large tip. I use a standard coupler tip, since it is the right size, and just as easy as a tip. If you don’t have a piping bag, people say you can snip the tip of a freezer bag and use that, but I haven’t tried it that way. If you have to use a freezer bag, make sure you use a sturdy one, and cut the tip small, you can always cut it bigger if you need.

Pipe mounds of dough, a little larger than a quarter, onto a parchment lined baking sheet, evenly spaced on the sheet. Sprinkle some cheese on top of the mounds, then bake those suckers into amazingness!

Gougeres, by David Lebovitz

1/2 cup water

3 Tbsp butter, small cubes

1/4 tsp salt

Chile powder, as desired

1/2 cup flour, all-purpose

2 eggs, large

1 Tbsp fresh chives, or fresh herb of your choice

3/4 cup cheese, grated fine (I think a combination of grated Parmesan and Gruyere is perfect)

1. Preheat oven to 425F (I used a convection oven at 400F). Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Place the water, butter, salt and chile powder in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, making sure the butter is melted.
3. Take the saucepan off the heat, and dump all of the flour into the water at once. Stir quickly and vigorously with a wooden spoon until the dough mixture is consistent.
4. Using a spatula, transfer the dough into a large food processor. Add the eggs and pulse the food processor until the egg thoroughly incorporated. Add chives and grated cheese, reserving 1 heaping tablespoon for later use. Mix well, dough will be sticky.
5. With a pastry bag, fitted with a large tip or coupler, fill with dough. Pipe the dough into small mounds, a little larger than the size of a quarter, evenly spaced to about an inch.
6. Sprinkle the tops of the mounds with the reserved cheese.
7. Place the baking sheets in oven, and bake at 425F for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, rotate trays, reduce heat to 375F (or 350F for convection) and bake for 20 more minutes, until gougeres are golden brown in color.
8. Take gougeres out of oven, place on a cooling rack, and let rest for 5 minutes. Puffs will taste best served warm.