Classic Gougères

In France, groceries carry bags of unbaked frozen gougères. Freezing the prepared unbaked gougères works great, even for several weeks, making gougères a terrific make-ahead before a party. I like to freeze them on a baking sheet, then transfer them to a zip lock bag. Guests love them!

Where's the video? I cook so much better after watching Melissa do it first. And she makes me laugh.

This is a recipe for which you must follow the instructions precisely. Since you say you didn't put the flour in the saucepan, you missed a critical opportunity to COOK the flour, and let it be absorbed into the water and butter. If you do it again, do it the proper way. What you've got here are the instructions for classic cream puffs -- eclairs, gougeres, etc. are in that category and must be made according to the rules. No improvising. Square one. put flour into boiling water.

With this dough it is essential to add the flour to the boiling water mixture and then cook, stirring, until a skin forms on the bottom of the pan and the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan. Without cooking the dough like this you'll end up with a soupy mess as you did. Try it again. It's worth it. You can use this dough, called chou paste, for so many things. You can do it!

I just ruined a batch following these suggestions, I wish I had followed the recipe. Based on your comment about a family recipe I suspect you also had relatives providing instruction, which is essential when using the "wooden spoon" method so you can recognize the states of the dough. I recommend to anyone trying this recipe to follow the recipe, not the commenters.

Why do so many recipes forget to list an ingredient? The ingredient list for this recipe does not include the 1 cup of water needed to prepare.

This is very similar to our old family recipe for cheese puffs that we make for New Year's. Put away your wooden spoon and stand mixer and do everything in one 3 quart saucepan with a handheld mixer. After the initial mixing on the stove, put the pan into cold water for a couple of minutes, stirring the dough a couple of times. Take it out of the water, beat in the eggs and cheese with the hand mixer. Then use a small 2 tsp cookie scoop instead of the bag. Neat and easy, yielding 50 gougères.

I made these yesterday and froze them. Tonight I tried baking 4 directly from frozen to the oven, for 15 minutes at 425 and 10 minutes at 350. They were absolutely amazing. I had to show my husband the freezer bag full of them in the freezer, because he was convinced I got them from a fancy French market downtown. Since I have a huge amount of eggs from my hens I will make more, with different cheeses, and some plain ones with sugar, and freeze them.

A good recipe, but strongly improved by adding a generous amount of fresh black pepper (I could not detect the cayenne at all). A few tips: as soon as they come out of the oven, poke a hole in the bottom to let the steam out so that they don't deflate (I use my thinnest pastry bag tip), and let them cool on a rack. You can bake and let cool ahead of time, put into Ziploc bags and freeze, then bake at 350 for 10 minutes when ready to serve. So easy!

Reread the recipe. You need to cook the flour and water together until it forms a stiff dough before adding the eggs. If you don't you get goop.

Plain gougeres are great for a christmas dessert - bake and cool, slice a hole in the bottom and stuff with softened peppermint or mint chip ice cream, then refreeze briefly (you want the puff soft but the ice cream fairly firm). Serve with hot chocolate sauce.

Gougères is a dish coming from Burgundy ; one would use plain pepper, not Cayenne pepper, and Comté cheese, rather than Gruyère, but I admit they are very close ; but certainly no Parmesan! Otherwise this dish is easy to make, and delicious!

When you bake them do you let them thaw first, then bake? Or bake from frozen and add more time?

Everyone loves gougeres, and the recipe is forgiving because you can refrigerate and even freeze the dough and they will bake up perfectly once thawed. Important not to overdo the amount of cheese or they will not puff correctly or be crispy enough. My favorite variation is with red pepper, pecorino and Cayenne for a hint of spiciness; have made them for many a dinner party and guests rave over it (Food & Wine, http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/red-pepper-garlic-pecorino-gougeres).

These came out great! My first time trying the piping and it was fun to do with my toddler assisting. I also substituted another hard cheese I had in the house for the gruyere and that worked out well.