Gougères

Last weekend I visited my boyfriend in LA and we decided to make one of our favorite breakfast foods, gougères. Although gougères are typically served as an hot d'oeuvre, my dad always made them for brunch and they've been one of my favorite foods since I was a little kid. Now that I'm older, and have learned to make gougères myself (they're one of those things that I thought was going to be super hard but actually turned out pretty easy), I made a whole batch just for just me and my boyfriend! Yeah, that's a lot of cheese, butter, and eggs for two people. These are seriously so good – crispy, cheesy, and unlike anything else. The recipe comes from a nineties magazine advertisement for Saveur, who in turn got it from the novelist Colette.

GOUGERES

(recipe from Saveur)

1 cup grated gruyere cheese (I typically use Trader Joe's swiss/gruyere blend, but if you can afford it go for the good stuff!)

1 cup water

5 tbsp butter

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

1 cup all-purpose flour

5 large eggs - at room temperature

1. Preheat oven to 425°. Grate the cheese.

2. In a medium-sized saucepan bring the water, butter, salt, pepper and nutmeg to a boil. When butter has melted, remove from heat.

3. Add all the flour to butter/water mixture and beat with a wooden spoon until mixture leaves sides of pan clean.

4. Add cheese and heat until incorporated. Beat in 4 eggs one by one until thoroughly absorbed. Beat until mixture is smooth, shiny and firm.

5. Drop by small spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet. Beat remaining egg with 1/2 tbsp water, then brush tops of uncooked puffs with egg wash.

6. Bake in upper third of oven for about 20 minutes or until golden and doubled in size. Remove from oven and serve. You'll have about 3 dozen.