Gougeres (French cheese puffs)

plate of gougeres cheese puffs with a few to side

5 from 3 votes

Gougeres transform relatively simple ingredients into tasty cheesy bites with gently crisp outside and soft, light inside. A delicious snack.

Prep Time20

Cook Time35

Total Time55

Course: Appetizer/Starter, Snack

Cuisine: French

Servings: pieces, approx

Calories: 66kcal

Author: Caroline's Cooking

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Ingredients

4 oz gruyere cheese or comte/emmental, divided
½ cup milk
½ cup water
7 tablespoon unsalted butter cut into chunks
1 cup all purpose flour plain flour
4 large eggs
¼ teaspoon salt
1 pinch pepper
1 pinch nutmeg

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C and line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment. Have a piping bag ready with a wide tip. Grate around 3 ½oz/100g of the cheese coarsely - this will go in the mixture - and grate the remaining ½oz/15g finely and keep separate (this is to go on top).
Place the milk, water and butter in a saucepan and place over a medium heat. Warm, stirring fairly regularly, until the butter melts. Continue to warm until the mixture comes to a simmer then remove from the heat.
Add the flour off the heat and using a spatula, mix well so that there aren't any clumps of flour. The mixture will probably look a little like mashed potato at this point.
Return the mixture to the heat, and cook for around 5 minutes over a medium heat, stirring regularly, until the mixture dries out a little and comes together in a smooth clump. You may get a little residue on the side of the pan.
Remove the mixture from the heat and let it cool a minute. You want it still warm but not so hot the eggs cook when they are added. Add the eggs one at a time to the mixture, stirring vigorously to incorporate them into the mixture. Don't worry if it looks like it is separating at first, just keep mixing and it will blend in.
Once all of the eggs are added, add the coarsely-grated cheese, salt, pepper and nutmeg and mix all through so well distributed. Transfer the mixture to a piping bag.
Pipe mounds of the mixture onto the prepared baking sheet in rows, each around 1 - 1 ½inches diameter (3 - 4cm) with around 2 inches (5cm) between them to allow for them expanding. If you need to, you can add a little more to any mound after to even out sizes.
Once you have piped them all, dampen your finger and gently smooth off the edges to make them relatively rounded. Sprinkle a little of the finely-grated cheese on top of each mound. Bake for around 20 -25 minutes until golden brown on top.

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