Cook the Book Fridays: Gougères from Everyday Dorie


large sized Gougeres sitting on a white plate with a red rim
I've decided to take a stab at joining a "Cook the Book" group! I, along with others from "Cook the Book Fridays" will be cooking from Dorie Greenspan's Everyday Dorie! Her newest cookbook just released on October 26, 2018! First up on our list of recipes to cook is her gougères titled "My Newest Gougères".

Have you ever had these fluffy balls of goodness? Gougères are a type of pâte à choux. The same exact dough that can be used to make cream puffs, eclairs and churros. In this recipe, we make a savoury one called gougères as they have cheese in them. The cheese is grated and then combined into the dough mixture. The one unique part of Dorie's newest Gougères is the addition of walnuts! There is also dijon mustard for a highlight in flavour.
gougeres all scooped and ready to bake

I loved the addition of the toasted nuts in the gougères as they gave them a bit more depth. We ended up using caved aged gruyere for our gougères as the Italian store I had purchased cheese from last night only had two options available. That likely resulted in my gougères coming out a tad salty. I'll have to find a nice sharp cheddar or just source a regular gruyere when I give this recipe another go.

Dorie’s publisher has allowed us to share this recipe so you too can make your own batch of these savoury bites! 

ingredients for making gougeres from Every Day Dorie by Dorie Greenspan

Dorie Greenspan's Newest Gougères

makes about 55 small gougères or about 35 large ones

Ingredients
  • 1⁄2 cup (120 grams) whole milk 
  • 1⁄2 cup (120 grams) water
  • 1 stick (4 ounces; 113 grams) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
  • 11⁄4 teaspoons fine sea salt
  • 1 cup (136 grams) all-purpose flour
  • 4 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 large egg white, at room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard (preferably French)
  • 2 cups (170 grams) coarsely grated cheese, such as Comté, Gruyère and/or sharp cheddar
  • 2⁄3 cup (80 grams) walnuts or pecans, lightly toasted and chopped
Working ahead: My secret to being able to serve guests gougères on short notice is to keep them in the freezer, ready to bake. Scoop the puffs, freeze them on a parchment- lined baking sheet or cutting board and then pack them airtight. You can bake them straight from the oven; just give them a couple more minutes of heat.

Directions

  1. Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat it to 425 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
  2. Bring the milk, water, butter and salt to a boil over high heat in a medium saucepan. Add the flour all at once, lower the heat and immediately start stirring energeti- cally with a heavy spoon or whisk. The dough will form a ball and there’ll be a light film on the bottom of the pan. Keep stirring for another 2 minutes or so to dry the dough. Dry dough will make puffy puffs.
  3. Turn the dough into the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or work by hand with a wooden spoon and elbow grease). Let the dough sit for a min- ute, then add the eggs one by one, followed by the white, beating until each egg is incorporated before adding the next. The dough may look as though it’s separating or falling apart but just keep working; by the time the white goes in, the dough will be beautiful. Beat in the mustard, followed by the cheese and the walnuts. Give the dough a last mix-through by hand.
  4. Scoop or spoon out the dough, using a small cookie scoop (11⁄2 teaspoons). If you’d like larger puffs, shape them with a tablespoon or medium-size cookie scoop. Drop the dough onto the lined baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between each mound. (The dough can be scooped and frozen on baking sheets at this point.)
  5. Slide the baking sheets into the oven and immediately turn the oven temperature down to 375 degrees F. Bake for 12 minutes, then rotate the pans from front to back and top to bottom.
  6. Continue baking until the gougères are puffed, golden and firm enough to pick up, another 15 to 20 minutes. Serve immediately—these are best directly from the oven.
Storing: The puffs are best soon after they come out of the oven and nice (if flatter) at room temperature that same day. If you want to keep baked puffs, freeze them and then reheat them in a 350-degree-F oven for a few minutes.

Excerpted from Everyday Dorie © 2018 by Dorie Greenspan. Reproduced by permission of Rux Martin Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.

When I baked these, I accidentally made the larger puffs and was wondering why I only could make about 18 or so puffs when the recipe says you can make 35 large ones. So mine must have been huge in comparison to what Dorie says to make! They were so big that we could each only eat 2 last night. As I wrote, they felt a bit saltier than I would like it to be, so I would also reduce the amount of salt probably from 1 1/4 tsp down to 1/2 tsp of salt.

I am looking forward to cooking through Every Day Dorie with everyone! I truly hope that I'll be able to keep up! Go see what others participating in the Cook the Book Fridays thought about this week's recipe!  

Comments

  1. Welcome to our group. Love the name of your blog. You obviously haven't interacted with the rest of the group since you posted your gougeres later than we did. Often we don't refer back to the Links that are posted later. Sorry. I am one of the blog's administrators and I can't tell you how much we enjoy new participants. Cooking the book is fun and this group is special. Dorie's original gougeres in the Around my French Table cookbook were large. For this recipe I used a smaller cookie scoop (1 1/2 to 2 TBS) and got the smaller version. I do like the smaller version better. Some others have remarked about too much salt. I didn't feel that way (love salt, myself) but that's an easy fix for you. See you next week when we do brussel sprouts.

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  2. aww thanks Mary! I'll have to make the smaller versions for sure as the salt factor was pretty intense! Is there a calendar to see which week for recipes? For some reason I thought it was just one a month for Every Day Dorie.

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  3. Welcome ! Your gougeres look fabulous and frankly, I am liking the description of that cheese you selected !! (#TeamSalt) One of the things I enjoy about cooking with a community is getting to see all the different results. Sometimes we intend them and lol, sometimes not so much. I also thought the toasted nuts, not to mention that mustard which I adore, really elevated this version of gougeres. I almost forgot that we need to knock out brussels sprouts this week, except I have the luck of my mother also being a group member plus I enjoyed a blue moon catch up/in person dinner with a blogging pal this week and she mentioned how delicious they were. Fingers crossed !!

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  4. Adriana - GreatFood360°November 9, 2018 at 6:32 PM

    Hi Lillian! So nice to meet you!

    Your description of the gougeres was spot on. They were on the salty side - which I really don't mind. I have a bunch in the freezer that I think I'll be serving with a schmear of fig jam or some dates.

    Our friend Mardi (Eat Travel Eat Write) stuffed her gougeres from back in the Around My French Table days with soup. Your big gougeres would have been perfect for that too.

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  5. thank you tricia for stopping by! Yes and thanks for the encouragement for getting the recipe for the brussels sprouts out! managed to come home, cook it, and blog while I ate! :D

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  6. Yes! We ended up having some of our with a nice tomato soup! Stuffing them is probably a good idea! haha..or maybe if I just made them smaller that would make more sense and thus be less salty.

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