These delightful Cracked Pepper Gougeres have fantastic flavor from Gruyere cheese and spicy peppercorns. Everyone loves cheese puffs!
Ingredients
1cupwater
1tspsea salt
1tbspsugar
6tbspbuttercubed
4.5ozall purpose flour, by weightsifted (3/4 cup+2 tbsp, if measuring)
4extra large eggsbeaten
2.5ozGruyeregrated (1 cup gruyere)
freshly cracked black pepper
1egg beaten with 1 tsp waterfor the egg wash
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
In a small saucepan over high heat, bring the water, salt, sugar, and butter to a boil, and check to make sure the butter is completely melted. Take the pan off the heat, dump in all the flour, and beat it in quickly and forcefully with a wooden spoon. Woooo work that bicep! Put the pot back on the heat, and keep beating until the dough forms a smooth solid mass and has pulled away from the sides of the saucepan.
Remove the pot from the heat and scrape the dough into a clean mixing bowl. Add in the beaten eggs only a little bit at a time (I did 4 installations) and beat vigorously in between each addition, until the dough is smooth. Stir in the grated gruyere and add freshly cracked black pepper to taste.
Now, usually pate a choux is piped out into little rounds, but I don’t see why one should go through the trouble. Piping bags are irritating and I’ve tested piped gougers vs. dished gougeres and they taste the same. So just use a small #60 2 tsp disher to portion out little balls, brush them with the beaten egg to give them a nice golden brown sheen, and bake on a parchment paper lined baking sheet for 25 minutes, until golden brown and puffed. Devour and enjoy!