Gougeres are French Cheese Puffs served with pre dinner cocktails, as finger food at parties, and in place of boring bread rolls to dunk into soups and stews. One of the best things I ate in France!
Simple to make, they reheat 100% perfectly – but the best part is smugly telling your friends “they’re French, darling” (I hear this in a posh British accent😂).
Gougeres recipe – French Cheese Puffs!
This Gougeres recipe comes to you via the hostess of a charming bed & breakfast called La Saura in Burgundy, France. We had a week long stay there just a couple of months ago, using it as our home base to explore the region.
And after a long day of sight seeing, there are no words to describe our delight when we arrived back at the villa to be greeted with a pile of warm cheese puffs, fresh out of the oven, washed down with sparkling Kir Royales.
So very chic. So French!!
What Gougeres taste like
They’re crusty on the outside, soft and hollow on the inside, and they’re very, very cheesy. Essentially, they are the savoury cheesy version of everybody’s favourite Profiteroles!
As with profiteroles, I’ve been tempted to pipe something into the hollow centre. But to be honest, these cheese puffs have enough flavour as they are – certainly plenty of cheese – so anything more would just make it overly rich.
Plus, the light-as-air texture is the signature feature of Gougeres! (Also, here’s how to pronounce Gougeres 😂)
What you need for Gougeres (Cheese Puffs)
Here’s what you need to make Gougeres. It’s adapted from this recipe (it’s in French!), with the minor change being an increase in cheese (under instruction from Jocelyn the B&B host who gave me this recipe!😂).
Best cheese for Gougeres
The cheese that is traditionally used is gruyere, Emmental or Comte. I’ve also made these with Swiss, cheddar and tasty (Aussie/NZ cheese) and they came out just as good. So I imagine they will be just fine with any other cheese as long as it’s the melting sort (ie not feta, parmesan, ricotta).
Also, I’d recommend avoiding mozzarella – it doesn’t have enough flavour or salt.
IMPORTANT: Grate the cheese yourself, unless you’re fortunate enough to be living in France in which case you have access to the finely shredded Emmental sold at the shops. Typically, store bought grated cheese is thicker than shredding your own, so it might weigh down the batter and prevent your Gougeres from puffing up which would be so sad. 😢
How to make Gougeres
These French Cheese Puffs are as fabulously easy to make as they are to eat. The part where the egg is mixed in does require some vigorous mixing to incorporate the egg fully – it’s a good arm work out! If you want to take a more leisurely path, just use an electric beater. 🙂
How to serve Gougeres
Ah, the best part – how to eat them!!
In France, they are served as appetisers and on the side of meals in place of boring old dinner rolls.😉
With Meals
Gougeres are placed on tables in bread baskets before the meal is served, to nibble on then to dunk into soups and thick stews, and mop plates clean. Here are a few suggestions for dishes to create your own French Provincial extravaganza!
Pre dinner nibbles
Serve them as finger food at parties, or pre dinner nibbles with cocktails – specifically, Kir Royales (French champagne cocktail) if you want to be on theme!
In fact, the actual Gougeres in the photos and most of the ones in the video (some fell into my mouth🤷🏻♀️) were taken to a Christmas party the next day. They go soft after they cool down, but a few minutes in the oven was all they needed to resurrect their perfect crispy exteriors, so they are 100% perfect for making ahead! – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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French Cheese Puffs (Gougeres)
Ingredients
- 1 cup (250ml) water
- 80g / 5.5 tbsp butter , unsalted, cut into 1.5 cm / 0.5″ cubes
- 1 cup (150g) flour , plain / all purpose
- 3/4 tsp salt , kosher/cooking salt
- Pinch nutmeg (powder or freshly grated)
- Pinch black pepper
- 4 eggs (~60 – 65g / 2oz each)
- 200g / 2 cups Gruyère cheese , freshly shredded (Note 1)
Topping
- 50g / 1/2 cup Gruyere cheese, extra , freshly shredded (Note 1)
- 1 egg yolk , for brushing
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 220°C / 425°F (200°C fan). Lightly grease 2 trays then line with parchment / baking paper.
- Place water, butter and salt in a saucepan over medium high heat. Bring to a boil until butter is full melted.
- Remove from stove, add flour, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Mix until incorporated.
- Return to stove on LOW heat and mix for 1 minute (this dries the mixture out, see video for before/after).
- Remove from stove, leave for 2 minutes.
- Add 1 egg, mix vigorously until incorporated – batter splits at first, but it always comes together!
- Add 3 more eggs, one at a time, mixing until incorporated before adding the next. Good arm workout! (Or use electric beater)
- Stir in 2 cups cheese.
- Drop 1 tablespoon mounds onto trays (small cookie scoop is ideal, otherwise use a measuring tablespoon and a teaspoon to scrape out. Can make larger – good for dunking!)
- Brush with yolk, then top with a pinch of reserved Cheese for topping.
- Bake 25 minutes.
- Allow to cool for 15 minutes so they become crusty and inside dries out a bit.
- Serve warm as pre dinner nibbles, finger food at gatherings, or dunk into soups and stews!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
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Made these for a birthday party and they were very good. Mine were getting dark after about 15 minutes so I took them out of the oven and tasted one. It seemed to be done – though it very moist in the middle – so I put them back in the oven for 5 more min. at 250. When I tiik them out the the texture was great, and so was the taste. Less so, as they cooled down – so it’s important to time these so guests don’t end up with cold cheese puffs.
What i love about your recipes Nagi; Is they work every time!
I got exactly 24 good sized domes of cheesy choux perfection. Thank you!
So easy and delicious! Bonus: Arm workout!
Can these be frozen for later use
This is just like ones I had in Burgundy! Have made it several times now and I have had best success when I have cooked the flour mixture for about five minutes to dry it out further. Didn’t worry about the yolk glazing. Thank you for the excellent recipe!
My dough was WAY too runny. My eggs were too large. I added Wondra flour and then baked them in the mini muffin tins like someone else suggested. If had it to do over again I would put salt on the tops.
Wow…these were so good! I’ve tried a couple other recipes but none were this tasty. I weighed my large eggs and needed five to measure 240 grams. Thanks for sharing.
Delicious! I am brazilian and we have the famous cheese rolls made with tapioca flour but for me this one is fluffier and lighter. Just be careful about the eggs size. If you use large eggs the dough can be less firm. Next time if i use large eggs I guess 3 eggs are enough.
I’ve never made anything like this, but had some Swiss cheese to use up so thought I’d give these a try. Read the recipe and watched the video. They turned out great! I used a mixture of Swiss and Colby jack (because I didn’t have enough Swiss). I really wanted to sprinkle some garlic on top, but thought I’d try them as instructed first. 😊
They came out perfect! Thanks Nagi!
Made these today for my book club. They disappeared. Great recipe. Make sure you bring the water-butter solution to a full boil. Then take off heat and immediately add flour. I gently warmed the water the first time and when I added flour had a runny mix like some others have had. Also used cookie scoop and mini muffin tin.
Is there a way to increase the puffy-ness? I grated the cheese myself, yet the batter was kind of liquid and it came out of the oven without any puff. Still delicious, but I would love to get the texture right!
Hello! Firstly I absolutely love your recipes, I have used so many for my family and for dinner parties. This is my second attempt at gougeres and I’ve noticed an error. One aussie cup is 125 mls not 250 mls. My roux was too runny so have started again and fingers crossed it’ll work out this time! Last time it was runny and I cooked them in a silicon mini muffin tin and they were really not too bad.
Sorry but one Aussie cup is DEFINITELY 250ml and given several other comments here it seems like it might be an error in the recipe. I’ve bought some gruyere today and got a bargain but I’d still rather not waste it. I’ll check with some other recipes but it sounds like maybe 125ml is correct. Hope Nagi or her team see this and edit the recipe if needed!
They were DELICIOUS! HOWEVER, while measuring, I decided to check the “cup” measurements with the “gram” measurements and they were VERY different. I The 200 grams of cheese was at least 1/2 C more than the 2 C called for – the flour and water also needed more than the C measurement. I suggest only using G. measurements!
United States
Quick question please: I’d like to make this a day in advance. After cooling & storing in an air-tight container, could they be left out at room temperature, or should they be refrigerated? Thank you!
Instead of “24 servings” it would be more useful to give the number of gougères to help with gauging the size of each. It would also be helpful to add to the recipe that their size increases as they cook!
My gougeres were simply amazing. And co spidering it was my first time ever doing choux pastry, I was mind blown. BUT…. they stuck to the baking paper 😔 this also happened to me when I made slice. I sprayed the pan then lined with paper. Any suggestions what I’m doing wrong?
Are you using parchment paper specifically? If not, I would try that but if you are and it’s still sticking I would change the brand of parchment paper. I’ve used Glad Natural Parchment Paper a bunch of times with no issues 🙂
My first fail! Not sure why my mix turned out very runny, I had 1 cup of water with the 80g of butter, then added 1 cup of flour. I couldn’t get it the right consistency, perhaps I let the water/butter cool down too much? My mix was far too runny so I ended up having to add more flour which ended up turning it into more of a bread. It still tasted nice but not was I was going for unfortunately
Probably the size of eggs. Try using smaller eggs or only 3 eggs
I too had a runny batter first time. I gently boiled the butter/water mix. Second time I boiled the water and butter, took off heat and immediately added flour. That did it.
I made these today for the first time. They were delicious and the consistancy great- I compared the Cup measurements against the gram measurements and they were VERY different. Try measuring on a gram scale! If you used measuring cups, I think that may have been the problem
I think my eggs were bigger than Nagi’s, so I ended up with a runnier dough, but I just put them in a mini cupcake pan and they turned out great! I was really surprised how they puffed up despite having no raising agent. They were absolutely delicious and I only had to dirty up one dish!
Hi,
How much salt do I add in step 2? Is it just a bit of the 3/4 tsp or wait to add all of it in step 3, or does it not matter when I put it in.
Thanks