French Snacks for Americans

 First of all, I love cheese. I will put cheese on and in anything. Luckily, the French seem to be pretty fond of it, too, so I was happy to discover gougères: small balls of dough and cheese! As I read the recipe, I was surprised that they're French -- they look and taste like homemade American appetizers. Needless to say, these were a hit.

This recipe is about as basic as they come...no yeast, no rising dough, no weird intervals in the fridge, nothing. The only thing that was new to me is that the dough begins as a roux, a cooked mixture of flour and butter. Béchamel (a creamy white sauce) is made this way as well, and is easily modified with cheese or sweeter flavors. That's just one example of many uses, so it was good to have practice with a simple roux that can be adapted for plenty of other recipes.

First, I melted 75 grams of butter (about 5 1/3 tbsp) into 250 ml of water with a pinch of salt, and slowly brought it to a boil. I was very careful not to let it boil too quickly or for too long, because the butter will brown and thicken (credit to my mom on this one; otherwise I would have a confusing and sticky mess). Once I saw small bubbles, I took the pan off the heat and added all 150 grams of flour, stirring quickly to create a mashed potato consistency...

It then needs to cool to room temperature so that it doesn't hold enough heat to cook the eggs or melt the cheese later. This, however, is when the confusing sticky mess came into play. I cracked 4 eggs and stirred the dough between each one, and I was left with what seemed like too wet of a mixture:

How would this possibly hold its shape in balls on a pan? I still needed to fold the cheese in, so I hoped that would help firm the dough as it cooled. It did! Here's my nice little pile of shredded and cubed cheese:

I decided to use a combination of shreds and cubes after reading comments on the French recipe blog. I wasn't sure it would make much of a difference, but a few people were extremely excited about how melty their gougères were with cubed cheese. They cooked the same way, so it seemed worth a shot.

Here they are before baking! I used a cookie dough scoop to form balls, but it could also be done with a spoon and some extra shaping.

These bake for 25 minutes at 180 C (360 F), and they spread out a lot, so I ended up with some interesting shapes:

When I first took these out of the oven, they weren't quite done, so taking a break from the heat caused a few of them to deflate in the center, as a soufflé would. Regardless, they look super cute!

Notes for next time: trust the recipe even when it looks weird, use more cubed cheese than grated, and add nutmeg! This last tip comes from a few other recipes I read, and I'm learning that this isn't a spice only for sweet treats. A lot of egg and meat dishes include nutmeg, so it will be good to experiment. I'd also love to have rounder gougères after baking, but the lumpy ones taste no different, so I'll let it slide.