Gougères recipe: Burgundy's cheese puffs for the aperitif

This gougères recipe makes Burgundy's cheese puffs with the three things that decide them: a choux paste dried hard on the stove, plenty of Comté and an oven door that stays shut.

A gougère is savoury choux: the dough of a profiterole without the sugar and with cheese beaten in. The French tourism site France.fr dates it to a feast in Sens in 1571, while the village of Flogny-la-Chapelle, near Auxerre, credits a 19th-century pastry cook named Liénard.

The quantities below are the house's own, built on two published references: France.fr's Comté version, made with water alone, and Dorie Greenspan's, which uses half milk and starts in a hot oven before turning it down. Milk browns the crust and water keeps it crisp.

Steam does all the lifting; the cook's only job is not to let it out.

Ingredients

• 125 ml water
• 125 ml whole milk
• 100 g unsalted butter, diced
• ½ teaspoon fine salt
• 150 g plain flour, sifted
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 150 g Comté or Gruyère, finely grated
• Black pepper and a little grated nutmeg

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200 °C and line two trays with baking paper.
2. Bring the water, milk, butter and salt to the boil in a saucepan.
3. Off the heat, tip in all the flour at once and beat with a wooden spoon until it forms a ball. Return to a medium heat and stir for 2 minutes, until a thin film coats the base of the pan: a drier paste takes more egg, and egg is what makes it rise.
4. Move the paste to a bowl and let it cool for 3 minutes so the eggs do not cook. Beat in the eggs one at a time, waiting until each is absorbed. Stop when the paste is glossy and drops from the spoon in a slow ribbon.
5. Stir in 120 g of the cheese, the pepper and the nutmeg.
6. Pipe or spoon walnut-sized mounds 4 cm apart and scatter the remaining cheese on top.
7. Bake for 10 minutes at 200 °C, then lower to 180 °C and bake for 15 to 18 minutes more, until deep gold and light in the hand. Do not open the door during the first 20 minutes: steam is the only raising agent and the shell has to set before it meets cooler air.
8. Switch off the oven, leave the door ajar and let the puffs dry for 5 minutes.

What to pour with gougères

France.fr pairs them with Petit Chablis, Crémant de Bourgogne or Bourgogne Aligoté, the white wine that also goes into a kir. In Burgundy's cellars they are usually handed round cold during a tasting; at home they are at their best warm. For a full Burgundian dinner, follow them with beef cheeks bourguignon in Stéphane Reynaud's version.

Gougères recipe: questions and answers

Can you freeze gougères? Yes, and raw is better. Freeze the piped mounds on a tray, bag them and bake straight from the freezer, adding 2 or 3 minutes.

Why do gougères deflate? Almost always because they were taken out too early or the door was opened: a shell that is still damp collapses as it cools.

Which cheese is best for gougères? A hard cooked cheese that grates dry: Comté or Gruyère.