I'm always curious in these balls, called gougeres. I'll be honest with you that I don't know how to pronounce it even though I did took three semesters of French in high school. Luckily, that's not important for my mission. I went online and studied a handful of recipes through different websites. And I picked this one from Chef Emeril Lagasse at the food network. I cut the recipe ingredients in half for smaller portion.
1/2 cup of milk
2 tbsp of butter
1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
salt & pepper(I used 1/8 tsp S & 1/8 tsp P)
2 eggs, room temperature (pls read on about the eggs)
1/4 cup of Gruyere cheese
1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese
First boil the butter and milk over medium heat. Set to medium low heat and throw in flour, salt and pepper.
Mix it until it becomes a dough. Set aside the dough for a minute to let cool down. Preheat the oven to 400oF/200oC. In a large bowl, stir ONE egg into the dough until smooth. It takes a bit time and patience here.
**This is where I want to point out. DO NOT crack in the whole second egg. Because my mixture became too watery after I added second egg. Yes, I messed up! I don't know if any chef will scream at me if they hear this. But I saved my "effort" with by adding another half portion dough and it worked luckily. So I guess you may beat the second egg in a small bowl, then add into the mixture little by little until the mixture become a very thick paste.** The paste should look shiny and occasionally drop "turtle-ly" slow from a fork. 
Take half of the paste to a small bowl and mix it with Gruyere cheese. Use two slightly wet spoons to form small balls and drop onto the baking sheet about 2 inch apart from each other.
Put the sheet in the oven and bake the balls at 400oF for 10 minutes. 
Then, lower the temperature to 350oF/170oC and bake for 25 minutes. During this time you can work on the second batch with Parmesan or you may prepare both batches and bake them at the same time. If you are baking the second batch separately, don't forget to set the oven back to 400oF. 
I found the Gruyere cheese ones are little plain but the Parmesan ones are sooo delish! I might put more cheese though next time and try it with cheddar. And, I once again impressed myself with this fun but very frustrated in the middle and ended up rewarding recipe.
There are more photos on flickr on the process.
Happy Baking!!
1/2 cup of milk
2 tbsp of butter
1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
salt & pepper(I used 1/8 tsp S & 1/8 tsp P)
2 eggs, room temperature (pls read on about the eggs)
1/4 cup of Gruyere cheese
1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese
First boil the butter and milk over medium heat. Set to medium low heat and throw in flour, salt and pepper.
Mix it until it becomes a dough. Set aside the dough for a minute to let cool down. Preheat the oven to 400oF/200oC. In a large bowl, stir ONE egg into the dough until smooth. It takes a bit time and patience here.
**This is where I want to point out. DO NOT crack in the whole second egg. Because my mixture became too watery after I added second egg. Yes, I messed up! I don't know if any chef will scream at me if they hear this. But I saved my "effort" with by adding another half portion dough and it worked luckily. So I guess you may beat the second egg in a small bowl, then add into the mixture little by little until the mixture become a very thick paste.** The paste should look shiny and occasionally drop "turtle-ly" slow from a fork. 
Take half of the paste to a small bowl and mix it with Gruyere cheese. Use two slightly wet spoons to form small balls and drop onto the baking sheet about 2 inch apart from each other.
Put the sheet in the oven and bake the balls at 400oF for 10 minutes. 
Then, lower the temperature to 350oF/170oC and bake for 25 minutes. During this time you can work on the second batch with Parmesan or you may prepare both batches and bake them at the same time. If you are baking the second batch separately, don't forget to set the oven back to 400oF. 
I found the Gruyere cheese ones are little plain but the Parmesan ones are sooo delish! I might put more cheese though next time and try it with cheddar. And, I once again impressed myself with this fun but very frustrated in the middle and ended up rewarding recipe.There are more photos on flickr on the process.
Happy Baking!!
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2 comments:
These are Brazilian Pão de Queijo, or cheese breads. See wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese_bun
Those cheese breads do look similar to the gougeres from the outside. They seem very different inside, seem chewy. I wonder how they taste. Thank you very much for your info. =)
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