Monday, July 30, 2012






This afternoon's efforts with les filles: authentic gougeres (recipe taken from John Burton Race's book French Leave).

Not only do they look good - they taste good.

A second batch (larger blobs) are currently in the oven - we're hoping for a final size like the ones you get in the Burgundian bakeries.

If you want the recipe, let me know.

(Next time we'll experiment with slivers of smoked salmon and bacon bits in the mix).




1 comment:

DaveG said...

Ah gougeres – yet another marriage of cheese and dough – a topic worth its own blog!

Why is it that cheese scones are never cheesy enough? The only really cheesy bit is the few strands of cheese on top for decoration. I've rejected both Delia's and Nigella's recipes as too bland. I tried the Wallace & Gromit recipe, which was disappointingly mild. Even doubling the amount of cheese and using extra strong cheddar failed to impress. Cheese + sun-dried tomato scones are very tasty, but the main flavour is tomato.

Attempts to make cheesy bread rolls were also disappointing, even with the inspirational idea from the Hairy Bikers to use diced instead of grated cheese. I steadily increased the amount of cheese until the gluten structure suffered mechanical failure, but still only mildly cheesy.

What next? What about encapsulating a chunk of cheese in a dough casing – or is this on the way to being a tiropita? However, in the store cupboard – a pack of choux pastry mix, only three years out of date. This plus some cheese which is growing a good crop of mould gives me a zero cost entry into making my own gougeres.

April Fool?