Ingredients
Check off ingredients as you go
Makes 20 generous gougères
- 120 g (1 cup) grated or crumbled cheese of your choice (goat cheese, mozzarella, Emmental, Comté, Emek…) + a little extra to sprinkle on each gougère
- 150 g (1¼ cups) all-purpose flour (plain flour), sifted
- 80 g (⅓ cup) butter
- 250 ml (1 cup) water
- 4 large eggs
- 1 tsp herbes de Provence
- Salt, pepper
For those discovering them for the first time, gougères are savory choux puffs with a melting cheese center. They’re perfect for appetizers, a light meal, or to take along on a picnic!
Making the choux pastry
- Pour the water into a saucepan and add the butter, cut into pieces so it melts. Once it comes to a boil, add the flour all at once and remove from the heat. The panade (that’s the name of this mixture) will become quite dense.
- Quickly return to medium heat, stirring constantly, until the panade pulls away cleanly from the sides of the pan.
- Remove from the heat, stir in the cheese while continuing to mix, then add the eggs one at a time. You should get a thick mixture that coats the spoon. Add the herbes de Provence, salt and pepper.
Baking the gougères
- Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). On a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, using a spoon or a piping bag, drop a heaping tablespoon of dough for each gougère, spacing them well apart because they will puff up. As a guide, I make 4 rows of 5 gougères. Sprinkle with grated cheese if you like. Bake for 20 minutes, until they are beautifully golden and puffed.
Tips and variations
For the gougère dough, some people use milk instead of water, or half water, half milk. I find they’re very soft and light with just water, but you can try it and make up your own mind.
Instead of the grated cheese on top of the gougères, you can brush them with egg wash.
If you make them a little ahead of time, gougères reheat very well for a few minutes in the oven.