Light and fluffy savory cheese puffs (gourgères) with cheddar cheese and thyme.
BE PICTURED IN; CHARACTERIZED IN:
Have you ever made cheese spaetzle? To make them, you first make a choux pastry pie (pronounced “pat ah shoo”), which if you’ve never made it before can seem a little odd.
For a choux pastry pie, you essentially cook the dough in half first by adding flour to boiling water and butter and beating like crazy until you have a ball of dough the consistency of play dough.
Then you mix in eggs and then the batter goes into the oven where it puffs up as the water in the batter turns to steam and expands into air pockets.
The dough is used to make cream puffs, eclairs, cheese puffs (gougères), beignets and even churros. David Lebovitz has a recipe for making a French pie crust using what I think is essentially a pâte-a-brand batter that wows.
So it’s a useful technique and fairly easy, although the dough can be a bit stiff by hand.
These Cheese Puffs are made with cheddar cheese and some thyme. You can add crumbled bacon to the mixture, or use sage or rosemary. You can use goat cheese instead of cheddar or gruyere or emmental (more traditional for a gougère).
Feel free to experiment with the cheese!
Incidentally, Michael Ruhlman has an excellent chapter on pâte a choux and gougères in his Ratio book.
Those cheese bags? Excellent as dumplings in pea soup. Use in place of croutons. Or gobble them up as they were intended, as a flavorful, addictive appetizer.
Cheddar Cheese Puffs
ingredients
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1st floor butter (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces)
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1 Cup water
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1/2 teaspoon Salt
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1 Cup all purpose flour
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4 big eggs
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1 cup (4 ounces) grated sharp cheddar cheese
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2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme or rosemary
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Fresh ground pepper
method
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Boil water, butter, salt:
In a medium saucepan, add water, butter, and salt and bring to a boil over high heat.
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Add flour and mix:
Reduce the heat to medium and add the flour all at once. Stir quickly. The mixture will form a ball of dough that will pull away from the sides of the pan.
Using a wooden spoon for stirring helps as the batter will be quite thick. Continue cooking for a few minutes.
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Allow to cool for a few minutes, then add eggs one at a time:
Remove the pan from the stove and let it cool for a few minutes. Stir so the dough cools more evenly. You want the batter to be warm, just not so hot that when you start adding eggs they cook as they hit the batter.
Add the eggs one at a time, stirring after each addition until the eggs are incorporated into the batter. (Make this part in a blender if you like, or by hand with a wooden spoon.) The batter should come out fairly creamy.
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Stir in the shredded cheese, thyme, and a few peppercorns.
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Spoon by spoonfuls onto the baking sheet lined with parchment paper:
Heat oven to 425°F. Spoon small balls (about 1 heaping tablespoon) of the batter onto a silicone or parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing the spoons at least 1 inch (2.5 cm) apart.
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Bake:
Place in the oven and cook at 425°F for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350°F and cook until puffy and lightly golden, another 15-20 minutes.
Links:
Pâte a Choux and explanation by Michael Ruhlman
Gougeres by David Lebovitz
French pie dough made using a pâte-a-choux method by David Lebovitz
Sage and Gorgonzola Puffs from Dara, the Cookin’ Canuck
Wikipedia on Choux Pastry
| nutritional information (per serving) | |
|---|---|
| 84 | calories |
| 6g | Fat |
| 4g | carbohydrates |
| 3g | protein |
