Drink · Year-round
Gougère with Comté, Parmesan and goat-cheese mousse
A crisp choux puff with cheese in the dough, cold mousse in the heart. Warm-cold game.
I learned gougère from Marc, the pastry chef at Bord'eau in Amsterdam, on a Friday night when the kitchen was already wrecked. He didn't teach me, exactly. He stood next to me, made one tray of his, watched me make a tray of mine, and pointed at the difference. His were sky-high. Mine were sunk in the middle like sad little berets. He shrugged: 'eggs', he said, 'too fast', and walked away.
Choux dough lives or dies on the eggs. Add them too quickly and the dough is too wet to climb. Open the oven before they've set and they collapse on the spot. It's a recipe for patience, which is exactly why it's perfect for the start of an evening. You can't rush it, so you stop running.
The goat-cheese mousse in the middle is a cold trick on a warm puff. The first bite is the crust splitting, the second is the cool centre catching up with you. I serve them straight from the oven, on the wood, no plates.
- Total time
- 50 min
- Serves
- 4 people
- Difficulty
- 3 / 5
- Pair with
- Dry champagne or a cold manzanilla.
Ingredients
Gougères (8 pieces)
- 125 mlwater
- 55 gbutter
- 75 gflour
- 2medium eggs
- 40 gComté, finely grated
- 20 gParmesan, finely grated
- 1egg, beaten. For the wash
Goat-cheese mousse
- 100 gfresh goat cheese (chèvre frais)
- 50 mldouble cream
- zest of ½lemon
Method
- 1
Oven to 200 °C, rack in the middle. Line a tray with baking paper.
- 2
Bring water, butter and a pinch of salt to the boil. Lower the heat, dump in all the flour, beat hard with a spatula until the dough pulls cleanly from the pan (panneau).
- 3
Cool 2 minutes off the heat. Add the eggs one at a time, beating each fully in before the next. Stir in both cheeses.
- 4
Pipe or spoon 8 mounds onto the tray, fairly close in size. Brush gently with the beaten egg.
- 5
Bake 22-25 minutes, deep gold and firm to the touch. Do not open the oven during the first 20 minutes.
- 6
Whip the goat cheese with cream, lemon zest and a pinch of salt to a light mousse. Load into a piping bag with a small tip.
- 7
Slice the cooled gougères across the top, pipe in the mousse, serve straight away.
