Gougère recipe

Happy Thursday, everyone.  Today I thought I'd post my favorite recipe for making gougères.  They are really quite easy to make although it's good to have a strong arm, the reason for which will be explained below.

Here are the ingredients you need:

1/2 cup of whole milk

1/2 cup of water

114 grams of high quality butter (try Plugra)

1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt

142 grams of all-purpose flour

5 large eggs (at room temperature)

170 grams of shredded cheese (I like to use a blend of gruyère and sharp cheddar)

Step 1:  Bring the milk, water, salt and butter to a boil in a sturdy saucepan.

Step 2:  Add all of the flour to the boiling liquid.  Turn down the heat to low.  Immediately start stirring the flour into the liquid.  I find a wooden spoon always works best for this.  Stir with a lot of force (hence, the strong arm comment above) until the dough comes together.  You will see a light crust form on the bottom of the pan.  Once you see that, keep stirring a minute more.

Step 3:  Scoop the dough out of the saucepan and into your mixing bowl.  A stand mixer is best for this, but doing it with a hand mixer or even by hand can work too.  Use the paddle attachment if you are using the stand mixer.  Run it for a minute on low speed to help the dough cool just a bit. 

Step 4:  One at a time, add the eggs.  Mix each one in until it is incorporated before adding the next.  When all 5 have been added, run the mixer a little more until the dough comes together.

Step 5:  Mix in the shredded cheese.

Final steps:  At this point you can portion the dough and freeze for later, or cook it right away.  I like to portion the dough using a medium-sized cookie scoop.  But any size scoop or using a pastry bag and piping the dough by hand can work.  Just try to get all portions the same size so that the cooking time is the same for all of them.

I portion the dough with my medium-sized cookie scoop onto a tray lined with parchment paper.  Then I pop them uncovered into the freezer for several hours.  They are easy to remove from the parchment paper, but not so easy to remove from the tray if you haven't put down parchment paper.  Once they are frozen, I place them in a freezer bag and they can easily sit in the freezer for a month before being baked.

Bake them at 375 F for 30 minutes if you use a medium-sized cookie scoop to portion.  If your portion size is different, experiment a bit with the cooking time.  They can be baked straight from the freezer.  

I love having these ready to bake straight from the freezer.  Give them a try and let me know how it goes.  Or just watch for when I put them on the weekly menu and order some.  All you have to do then is bake the frozen portions that I'll give you.

Happy eating!