Gougères

Drinking French

We really loved the gougères we made before (from Brown Sugar Kitchen), so we were really excited to try these! The method was pretty much the same, but you put extra cheese on top of these before you bake them to add a crunchy top. I still think choux pastry is one of the easier pastries to make at home, so don't be intimidated by it!

These would make an impressive cocktail party snack, or a pre-dinner appetizer, when we can finally have people over again.

You can find this recipe (or very similar) on David Lebovitz's website, here: https://www.davidlebovitz.com/gougeres-french-cheese-puffs/

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:05]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:07]: with heather
[00:07]: today uh i kind of wanted to have
[00:11]: gougere again and i found them in
[00:14]: drinking french
[00:14]: in the snacks section of that book
[00:18]: by david leibovitz and so we're going to
[00:20]: make them these ones
[00:21]: only have cheese no sausage
[00:25]: but let's get started i have in this
[00:28]: pan we have unsalted butter
[00:31]: cubed up i'm going to turn it on medium
[00:34]: high heat
[00:37]: i'm going to add the water
[00:40]: it's already been measured out
[00:47]: and i'm going to add we have some kosher
[00:49]: salt and
[00:50]: some cayenne pepper so
[00:53]: hopefully won't be too spicy goes
[00:55]: through all of them should be okay
[00:58]: and we're just gonna let this go
[00:60]: stirring it a little bit
[01:01]: as we can until the butter melts
[01:07]: and while we're waiting for this i'll
[01:09]: let you know i have
[01:11]: two baking sheets again with parchment
[01:13]: paper
[01:14]: ready for the oven which is preheated to
[01:18]: 425 degrees
[01:20]: so we're all ready for everything
[01:24]: um and we're just waiting for our butter
[01:26]: to melt now
[01:28]: okay my butter is just melted and now
[01:32]: we're going to add
[01:32]: all of our flour this is just a plain
[01:35]: all-purpose flour
[01:37]: in at once
[01:40]: and we're going to stir this he says to
[01:42]: use a flexible spatula
[01:45]: or a wooden spoon a sturdy
[01:49]: sturdy spoon and we're just going to
[01:53]: stir this up until it is
[01:57]: one single ball of dough and no longer
[02:00]: sticks to the sides
[02:02]: and we're really just about there
[02:04]: already
[02:07]: all right that looks good to me
[02:12]: now we're done over here at the stove
[02:14]: i'm going to transfer this
[02:15]: to my mixer and we will meet you
[02:18]: back there our mixture is still pretty
[02:21]: hot and he says to burst it a couple
[02:23]: times like just
[02:24]: sort of like when you pulse in a food
[02:26]: processor a couple times just to help
[02:27]: cool it off
[02:32]: you can kind of see the um steam rising
[02:35]: when you do that
[02:36]: so now we're going to turn it to
[02:40]: medium high and we're going to
[02:41]: incorporate our eggs one at a time
[02:44]: and stopping in between the scrape down
[02:46]: just like we always do so we're going to
[02:48]: be doing that
[02:49]: for just a little bit
[02:53]: so the goal here is to do it quickly so
[02:55]: you don't
[02:56]: cook the egg you don't like end up with
[02:58]: scrambled egg in here
[03:00]: so so that is why you do it while the
[03:05]: mixture while the mixer is already
[03:06]: running so it gets
[03:08]: incorporated very quickly
[03:11]: all right halfway done
[03:16]: we have one more egg to do
[03:22]: now that this has all been incorporated
[03:24]: we're looking more like
[03:26]: the choux pastry we had last time
[03:29]: and we're just going to add our cheese
[03:33]: um he doesn't say what speed but i'm
[03:37]: going to do it a little bit lower
[03:39]: we're going to add and incorporate this
[03:45]: he doesn't like it when i do a talk
[03:46]: while it's running um
[03:48]: this is only part of the cheese in the
[03:50]: recipe
[03:51]: but he does list out the amounts
[03:54]: separately so
[03:55]: each amount has been weighed um
[03:58]: separately and this is what goes
[03:60]: into the batter
[04:11]: just gonna get stirred in
[04:20]: that looks pretty good i'm gonna clean
[04:23]: this up get as much as i can off of my
[04:25]: paddle
[04:25]: and we're gonna come back just a second
[04:28]: to make to form our gouger
[04:33]: so once again i'm going to use a disher
[04:35]: here this one is
[04:36]: slightly larger than the other one that
[04:38]: i use because he says
[04:40]: about a tablespoon and a half
[04:43]: yeah um so whatever and he says it'll
[04:46]: make
[04:46]: 30 whereas we made 24 last time i don't
[04:49]: know i'm gonna try and
[04:51]: get whatever i can on this pan he says
[04:53]: to put them at least
[04:55]: an inch apart because they do puff and
[04:58]: grow
[04:59]: so i'm just going to be scooping and
[05:02]: dropping them i'm putting as many as i
[05:06]: can
[05:06]: on the pan
[05:12]: and i don't think i said but we're using
[05:13]: gruyere cheese but he says you could use
[05:17]: conte or something else let me check
[05:20]: real quick
[05:22]: um yeah yeah conte
[05:25]: or gruyere is sort of the the
[05:27]: traditional cheeses
[05:29]: we really like every year so or i really
[05:31]: like creator
[05:33]: anybody else but that's what matters
[05:39]: okay looks like i got what 32
[05:43]: not bad about the same
[05:47]: so the other thing that's different
[05:48]: about this recipe is we have some more
[05:50]: of our grilled cheese that we are going
[05:52]: to try to make as much fit on top of
[05:55]: this
[05:55]: stick to the top as we can so
[05:58]: he says he does this
[06:04]: and it's i don't know
[06:08]: i'm just going to sort of put it on top
[06:12]: and we'll see
[06:15]: and i think this is probably why
[06:19]: his are a little bit browner
[06:22]: because the cheese on top will brown
[06:26]: better than just the dough
[06:30]: and be nice and crunchy and delicious
[06:33]: okay
[06:34]: so now that i am done
[06:37]: putting cheese on top we are going to
[06:39]: put these in our 425 degree oven
[06:42]: and set a timer for five minutes and
[06:45]: when that
[06:45]: timer goes off we're going to turn the
[06:47]: heat down to
[06:50]: 375 fahrenheit of course
[06:53]: and we're going to let them cook for
[06:54]: about 30 minutes
[06:56]: so but halfway into that 30 minutes so
[06:59]: about 15 minutes
[07:00]: we're going to turn our pan so we're
[07:03]: going to switch the one that's on top
[07:04]: to the bottom and we're going to rotate
[07:06]: them 180 degrees so that they cook
[07:08]: evenly so we'll let you know what they
[07:11]: look like
[07:11]: when that's all done and let you know
[07:13]: how long it takes for us to uh think
[07:15]: they're done
[07:16]: okay
[07:26]: on this episode of cooking the books
[07:27]: with heather you watched me make
[07:29]: gujarat from david leibovitz's drinking
[07:32]: french cookbook
[07:34]: and it was very very similar to
[07:38]: the previous recipe we made from brown
[07:40]: sugar kitchen that had andouille in it
[07:42]: i'll definitely link that up here
[07:45]: um the techniques were pretty much
[07:48]: exactly the same the ingredients and
[07:51]: amounts were
[07:52]: slightly different but they both turned
[07:54]: out
[07:55]: pretty much the same um except one had
[07:58]: andui in it
[07:60]: uh we enjoyed these just like we enjoyed
[08:02]: the other ones
[08:03]: uh it was really simple it doesn't
[08:05]: require any like
[08:07]: super fancy ingredients i'm pretty sure
[08:09]: that he does it himself without
[08:11]: a mixer although i like to use a mixer
[08:16]: so you can definitely do this without a
[08:18]: mixer
[08:20]: and he says to use conte or gruyere
[08:23]: that's if you want to be very
[08:25]: traditional french it would be good with
[08:27]: any strong flavored cheese that you like
[08:29]: he suggests
[08:31]: cheddar or y'all yarlsberg would also
[08:34]: work
[08:35]: i'm pretty sure anything you like would
[08:37]: be good in these
[08:38]: these are just really delicious a great
[08:40]: little snack to have
[08:41]: especially when you have cocktails um or
[08:44]: having a party
[08:45]: they're easy to eat um they're yes
[08:48]: they're basically a couple bites
[08:50]: and that is it and they don't take a
[08:52]: whole lot of effort
[08:54]: and you and i'm pretty sure we did we
[08:57]: had some leftover
[08:58]: of these and we reheated them
[09:02]: before we ate them the next time just a
[09:04]: little bit like
[09:05]: uh five or ten minutes in the in in an
[09:08]: oven just to warm them up and get them a
[09:11]: little crispy again and they were
[09:13]: still delicious just like on the first
[09:15]: day so uh
[09:16]: you can definitely pre-make these and
[09:18]: then just
[09:20]: crisp them up a little bit right before
[09:21]: you serve them so
[09:23]: if you enjoyed watching me make this
[09:25]: give me a thumbs up
[09:26]: and hit the subscribe button and come
[09:28]: back and watch me make something else
[09:30]: next week