Cheddar Cheese Puffs

To invent cheese puffs, first you construct a pâte a choux dough (pronounced “pat ah shoo”), which, whether you’ve never made it before, can seem a little weird. Weird considering most of us who bake are used to mixing dough ingredients together and thereupon plopping them in the oven. With a pâte a choux dough, you essentially half cook the dough first, by adding flour to boiling water and butter, and stirring like a madman until you have a ball of dough the consistency of playdough. next you mix in eggs and next the dough goes in the oven, where it puffs

up as the water in the dough turns to steam and expands into air pockets. The dough is used for making cream puffs, eclairs, cheese puffs (gourgères), beignets, and even churros. David Lebovitz has a recipe for making a French tart crust with what looks to me to be essentially a pâte a choux dough, that has been getting raves. So, it’s a useful technique, and pretty easy, though the dough can be a little stiff to work by hand.

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