Oh, How Cheesy: Gougères (cheese puffs)
Have you ever been to a silly movie and declared, “Oh, how cheesy!” knowing what you meant but unable to define it?
I Googled the word “cheesy” and got this definition:
- Like cheese in taste, smell or consistency.
- Cheap, unpleasant, or blatantly unauthentic.
I thought that was a bit harsh, so I looked on Wikipedia which says:
- Cheesy may refer to: the word: Containing or resembling cheese.
- (informally) Trite, contrived, cliché.
That’s more like it. Along the same lines, You Tube even has “The 100 Cheesiest Movie Quotes of All Time.” Worth watching for a good laugh.
General Charles de Gaulle of France is purported to have thrown up his hands in disgust, declaring “How can you expect me to govern a country that has more types of cheese than days of the year?” I’m sorry to disappoint all my French friends, but there are more recorded types of cheese in the British Isles than there are in France, so take that!
A few days ago we celebrated Bastille Day with our Tongham Tasters wine circle and I made a full, traditional French menu, starting with one of my cheesy favourites, gougères.
Gougères are a popular savoury treat from Burgundy, and are absolutely fabulous with a glass of Chablis or other apéritif. A cheesy variation of choux pastry, they can be made as individual cheesy puffs or as per the traditional way in Burgundy, in a delightful crown-shaped sharing piece.
And making them in your Thermomix is a real doddle! No tiring beating of the eggs into the mixture with a wooden spoon, and the whole process can be done in just one bowl with just one blade. Thermomix makes it so easy, I’ll never make choux pastry any other way again. Knock up a batch tonight to have with cocktails – it’s fast and easy in the Thermomix!
Gougères bourguignonnes
The following recipe is based on an authentic Burgundian recipe supplied by the superb La Chablisienne wine cooperative in Chablis, France. It uses La Chablisienne’s weights and proportions and Janie Turner’s Thermomix method in the “Gougères – cheese puffs” recipe on page 85 of Fast and Easy Cooking, the 300-page recipe book that comes with every Thermomix TM31 purchased from UK Thermomix.
Ingredients
150 g gruyere or comté cheese, cut into chunks (optional 25 g more to top the gougères)
100 g butter
25 g water (tip: use a spoon to weigh in such a small amount)
½ tsp salt
several turns of freshly-ground black pepper
150 g plain flour
3 medium eggs
1 egg to glaze
a large baking sheet covered with baking parchment or silicone
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 220°C/425°F/gas 7. Weigh the gruyere or comté into the TM bowl. Chop 20 seconds/Speed 7. Set aside in a bowl.
- Put the butter, salt, pepper and water in the TM bowl and heat 5 minutes/90°C/Speed 1, or until all the butter has melted. (My butter was room temp and this was ready in under 3 minutes.)
- Add the flour and mix 1 ½ minutes/Speed 3 (imagine doing that by hand!).
- Plunge the base of the TM bowl into cold water for 1 minute to cool the mixture slightly. Dry the TM bowl thoroughly, including underneath the bowl, and place back on the base. Add 3 medium eggs one at a time through the hole in the TM lid onto the running blades at Speed 5 then continue to mix for 30 seconds.
- Add 150 g of gruyère or comté and mix 30 seconds/Speed 2.
- To make a traditional Burgundian Gougères crown, use tablespoons dipped in water to place mixture about 2 cm/one inch apart in a large circle on the baking parchment or silicone-lined pan. (To make individual gougères place teaspoons of mixture on a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving space for each to double in size.) Lightly beat the last egg and brush it over the pastry. If using, sprinkle the last 25 g of grated gruyère or comté over the unbaked gougères.
- Bake for about 20 minutes. Aga Ovens: bake on rack set on floor of Roasting Oven 12 to 15 minutes. Your gougères will have puffed up delightfully and formed a crown of savoury and delicious fare.
Madame Thermomix’s tip: Be sure to use medium sized eggs. If your eggs are too big they will make the batter too thin and your gougères will spread too much and be flat. Delicious, but flat, like mine in the top photo.
Whilst searching for the origins of gougères I came across this ingenious method for forming a perfect crown:
On the left, a bowl is inverted and used as a template for the crown shape. On the right, tiny cubes of gruyère are dotted over the egg-washed choux ready for baking. If you read French, the article is quite interesting. If you don’t, I see that Google Chrome asks if you want to translate it!
This recipe can also be used to make a cheesy kind of vol au vent case that can be filled with mushrooms or escargots in a white sauce with parsley or tarragon for a scrumptious starter.
Thermomix is a tool and you are the genius that uses it. Use your imagination!
Bon appétit !
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