Today I bring you a perfect appetizer for a special meal. It is a small delight with a cheese heart that Àngels Pallàs prepared on We Love Cooking as an appetizer for a Christmas meal that we will be publishing this week.
Although it may seem like a complicated recipe, it is very easy to make. It only has two delicate moments: the second egg and the baking.
Ingredients
- 70cc of white wine
- 70cc of water
- 70gr of butter
- 75gr of flour
- Salt
- 2 eggs and 1 yolk for brushing
- 90gr of assorted cheeses (Àngels used gruyere, cheddar and roquefort in equal parts, but we can use any cheese such as emmenthal or manchego)
- 2 tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese
To decorate:
- Spreadable cheese (like Philadelphia)
- A splash of heavy cream Cranberry jam
- Some parsley leaves
Preparation
- In a saucepan we put the water, the wine and the butter cut into pieces. We bring to a boil for 3 or 4 minutes and then add all the flour at once and stir until we get a dry dough.
- We remove that dough into a bowl and let it cool a little.
- We add one egg to the dough and mix well with a spatula until it is well incorporated (it is a bit difficult but it ends up integrating into the dough).
- We add the cheeses cut into small dice and mix well so they melt into the dough. We add the second egg but very carefully (here we can ruin the dough). The idea is to add the second egg in very small amounts since we don't want the dough to become too runny. The dough has enough egg when we lift a little with the spatula and it falls down like melted cheese, without breaking at any time. At that point we stop adding egg, the dough is finished. If we go overboard with this second egg, we can start the recipe again but the “spoiled” dough will serve to make some delicious cheese fritters.
- With the help of a spoon we put the dough into a piping bag (plastic ones that we can cut to size work very well) and make the gougères on a baking tray. With the piping bag held vertically we make a chickpea-sized base and then surround it and build up. It is important to make the base first (the chickpea) because if we make a circle upwards the base remains hollow and the dough would collapse in the oven.
- Brush with the yolk and sprinkle the grated parmesan on top of the gougères.
- Place the gougères in the oven preheated to 160º. After 25 minutes turn off the oven and leave the gougères inside with the door slightly open (we can place a dish towel) for 10 more minutes.
- We remove them from the tray and let them cool on a rack (the same one we use for making cookies).
- To decorate the gougères we can place a dollop of spreadable cheese (like Philadelphia) thinned with a splash of heavy cream, cranberry jam and a piece of parsley.
