A gougère is the savory side of a little French pastry more commonly known as Pâte à Choux (pat-a-shoo).  The only ingredients are water, butter, sugar, salt, flour, eggs, and cheese.

What’s interesting about choux dough is instead of using a raising agent like baking powder, it utilizes high moisture ingredients to create steam during the cooking time which fills the pastry with air.  The end result is a light, creamy puff.  They’re super easy to make, look beautiful right out of the oven, and they taste like a little bite of fluffy, cheesy perfection!

Serve gougère’s as an appetizer with champagne or a light crisp white wine or even as an accompaniment to a bowl of your favorite soup.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups of water
1 stick of unsalted butter
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups of flour
8 large eggs, beaten
1 cup shredded Gruyère cheese

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

2) In a large saucepan, bring the water, butter, sugar and salt, to a boil.

3) Reduce heat to medium and add the flour all at once, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan. Remove pan from heat.

4) Incrementally stir in the eggs until they are completely incorporated and the dough is smooth and glossy.

5) Transfer the dough to a piping bag and pipe 1-2-inch mounds onto the baking sheets, leaving about an inch in between.

6) Sprinkle the shredded Gruyere cheese and a pinch of salt on top of each mound, and bake for 25-30 minutes until browned and puffed. Serve immediately.