eating cheese gougères

Here is a quick recipe to serve with an aperitif before dinner.  Everybody loves theses little bite size cheese pastries, that smell divine as they come out of the oven and generally disappear before they have even had time to cool down!

Gougères (pronounced gooshair) are actually little choux pastries, the same as you'd make for chocolate eclairs.  But for gougères they are savoury and cheese flavoured.

To make a baking tray full, sufficient for a few people with drinks, you will need:

125g/1 cup/4.5 oz flour

80 g / 1/3 cup /  3 oz butter

1/4 litre water
4 eggs

pinch of salt, pepper, some grated nutmeg

150 g / 2 cups/  5 oz grated cheese (I use emmenthal or parmesan or a mix of each)

fresh thyme or rosemary is optional

Making choux pastry for the first time can be a little daunting, but actually if you follow the recipe it is quite quick and simple.

Heat your oven to 200°C, 400°F or gas mark 6.   In a saucepan, heat the water , the butter and the salt.  When it comes to the boil take it off the heat and slide the flour into the water in one go. 

Stir very vigorously with a wooden spoon, the mixture will gradually come together and you will end up with a ball of dough in the pan.

Put the pan back to a gentle heat and continue to stir the dough around the pan.  You are aiming to dry out some of the moisture.  When the dough starts to come away from the side of the pan, take it off the heat and let it cool down till hardly warm.

Mix in the eggs one by one.  Stirring well in between each egg.  Add the grated cheese.

If you would like to flavour some of the gougères with a little thyme or rosemary, this is the time to add some finely cut leaves.

If you are happy using a piping bag with a wide tip, you can put all the dough into the bag and pipe it into little mounds on your pre-greased baking tray.  Otherwise spoonfuls of the mix work well too.  You are aiming for smaller than golf ball size.

At this point, you could freeze the little balls of dough and pop them into a bag once they are frozen through.  They'll be ready to use when you are!

If you want to eat them straight away, then pop them into your oven for about 25 minutes.  Try to time this well, you really want to serve these still warm, soooo delicious!

Voila, I hope you have fun in your kitchen this week.

all photos thank to google images