It's Choux Time, Part 1: Gougeres

I am not a baker. Sometimes I toy with cookies, when I get a mad hankering for some sugar, and I try to make soda bread around St. Patty's Day. But really, the precision that good baking requires is just too time consuming and finicky for me. So, I was excited to discover just how easy choux (pronounced like "shoe") dough is. It's the same puffy, crispy, buttery dough used for eclairs, among other delicacies. So, for a foodie dinner party, I decided to try some gougeres (pronounced "goo-jairs") - delightful French cheese puffs.

Gougeres are kind of sweet (in the awesome sense, not the "not salty" sense). They look and sound all fancy (ooh, French!) but are essentially homemade puffy Cheez-Its. It took me about 15 minutes to make the dough and pipe out out the gougeres, and another 20 to bake. For foodie dinner party, I made a sweet potato mousse (just whip up one large cooked sweet potato with about a pint of heavy cream until soft peaks start to form) and used the same piping method described below to stuff the cooled gougeres (just make a small hole in the side and pipe in the mousse).

A couple of things I've learned as I've tried to recreate this dish. First, do NOT leave your dough to sit. It takes out all the puff of the puffy pastry. No good. I ended up with flat little disks and had to make a sort of "gougere whoopie pie" instead. Still cheesy and satisfying, but not what I was going for. Second, these things are good cold, but better warm. If you end up with some leftovers, reheat them in the oven to maintain the crispy exterior, instead of the microwave.

Note: I've been using the Cordon Bleu recipe for my dough, which calls for four eggs. However, I found that the dough came out a eggier than my liking. So, I've adjusted it to three eggs. Try it either way, and see which you prefer.

Gougeres

1 cup water
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup flour
1 tsp salt
3-4 eggs (see note above)
1/3 cup shredded cheese (cheddar, parm, gruyere, etc)

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In medium stock pot, bring butter and water to a boil. Once butter is melted, remove from heat and stir in flour until dough is smooth and shiny with a wooden spoon (whisks don't work in my experience). Add eggs slowly and mix until well incorporated and smooth. Return to low heat and stir a minute or so to dry off any excess moisture.

2) Let the mixture cool a bit, maybe 5 minutes. Grease a baking sheet in the meantime. Stir the cheese into the dough. Then transfer it to a gallon-size ziploc bag.

3) Cut a small bottom corner off, creating a hole about a centimeter wide. Pipe the dough onto the baking sheet (similar to squeezing a large tub of toothpaste or frosting something) to make dough into 1-inch dollops. The dough shouldn't spread too much while baking, so you can pack the gougeres in pretty tight.

4) Sprinkle the dough-dollops with any extra cheese and bake until golden brown, 15-20 minutes. Serve immediately.