HFF #9: Savory Cheese Puffs!
Or
“Petits Choux au Fromage”!
In
thinking of a savory recipe, I took inspiration from the “savory course” that
would grace a Victorian/Edwardian dinner table.
The savory course would involve little bites of creamy/salty/spicy
treats that would come at the end of a meal to digest the rich meal. A few examples of these bites were deviled
eggs, toasts with cheese (welsh rarebit), and devils on horseback (oysters
wrapped in bacon). Cheese puffs would
also be a very popular bite. The perfect
amount of creamy saltiness but light enough that it won’t make you feel too
full.
As
time went on the “savory course” was replaced by the “cheese course” and the savory
bites were put at the beginning of the meal in the form of hors
d’oeuvres. But I was still intrigued
by the savory cheese puff (Not cheesy puff!!!
Which my husband kept saying.) and wanted to give it a try. Enter Mrs. Julia Child!
As
I was browsing, I came across Julia’s recipe for “Petits Choux au Fromage” or “Cheese
Puffs” in her most famous of cookbooks, Mastering the Art of French
Cooking, which she co-authored with Simone Beck and Louise Bertholle and
was published in 1961. Since I usually
do earlier receipts, I was excited to try a more modern recipe.
Petits Choux au
Fromage
(Cheese Puffs)
“For about 40 puffs, 1 ½ inches in diameter when
baked.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
1 cup (4 ounces)
grated swiss, or swiss and parmesan, cheese
2 cups warm pate a
choux
Beat the cheese into the warm pate a choux. Correct seasoning. Squeeze into circular mounds on a baking
sheet, paint with beaten egg, and bake as in the preceding recipe for small
puffs. After painting with egg, you may,
if you wish, sprinkle each puff with a pinch of grated cheese.”
Pate a Choux
(Cream Puff Paste)
“For about 2 cups.
A 1 ½-quart,
heavy-bottomed saucepan
1 cup water
3 ounces (6 TB or
¾ stick) butter cut into pieces
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
Pinch of nutmeg
Bring water to boil with butter and seasoning and boil
slowly until the butter has melted.
Meanwhile measure out the flour.
¾ cup all-purpose
flour (scooped and leveled)
Remove from heat and immediately pour in all the flour
at once. Beat vigorously with a wooden
spatula or spoon for several seconds to blend thoroughly. Then beat over moderately high heat for 1 to
2 minutes until mixture leaves the sides of the pan and the spoon, forms a
mass, and begins to film the bottom of the pan.
4 eggs (U.S.
graded “large”)
Remove saucepan from heat and make a well in the
center of the paste with your spoon.
Immediately break an egg into the center of the well. Beat it into the paste for several seconds
until it has absorbed. Continue with the
rest of the eggs, beating them in one by one.
The third and fourth eggs will be absorbed more slowly. Beat for a moment more to be sure all is well
blended and smooth.”
Small Puffs
“For 36 to 40
puffs 1 ¼ to 1 ½ inches in diameter
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Ingredients for 2
cups warm pate a choux from the preceding recipe
A pastry bag with
½ inch, round tube opening
Make pate a choux.
Fold the top 3 inches of the pastry bag over your left
hand… Using a rubber spatula, fill the bag with warm choux paste.
2 buttered baking
sheets
Squeeze the paste onto the baking sheets, making
circular mounds about 1 inch in diameter and ½ inch high. Space the mounds 2 inches apart.
1 egg beaten with
½ tsp water in a small bowl
A pastry brush
Then dip your pastry brush into the beaten egg and
flatten each puff very slightly with the side of the brush. Avoid dripping egg down the puff from rising.
Set the sheets in upper and lower thirds of your
preheated, 425-degree oven, and bake for about 20 minutes. The puffs are done when they have doubled in
size, are a golden brown, and firm and crusty to the touch. Remove them from the oven and pierce the side
of each puff with a sharp knife. Then
set in the turned off oven and leave the door ajar for 10 minutes.
Cool the puffs on the rack.”
I
was amazed by the detail in this recipe.
I know Julia was very thorough in her measurements, but it is a far cry
from having to break down and interpret 17th and 18th
century receipts.
I
also felt like I was about to be on an episode of “British Baking Show”, making
pate a choux for the first time! And, I
apologize but I could not figure out how to add the appropriate accent marks
with the French words.
So let's get started!
So I took Julia's suggestion of half swiss cheese and half parmesan cheese. Both are freshly grated and I weighed them out on my new scale! So exciting!
Once the cheese was all grated and set aside I started on the base for the pate a choux by melting the butter pieces in the water with the salt, pepper and nutmeg. It didn't take much time at all, so it was good that I already had the flour and eggs measured out before hand.
Once the water started to boil and the butter melted I took it off the heat and added the flour and stirred like crazy! Then, when my arm had enough, I started adding the four eggs one at a time and continued to beat them in. So once my arm felt like it would fall off, I had a smooth batter of a pate a choux! I think even Paul would give me a handshake on this one!
So I put my arm back in its socket and stirred in the shredded cheese.
Then came the harder part... the precise and delicate process of piping out the puffs.
I have never used a piping bag before so this was completely new territory for me. And I figured out pretty quickly it's not very easy to fill a pastry bag with sticky batter. and that you really do need to fold it closed or else the batter will seep through and get all over your hands.
I did figure out that a glass is a great way to hold a piping bag that you need to fill and you don't have the one-handed pastry bag filling maneuver down yet.
Once I had my mostly uniform in shape and some-what evenly spaced puffs piped I beat up and egg for the wash and pulled out the extra cheese, because who doesn't want extra cheese on top!
Ready for the 425 degree oven! And I was ready to sit in front of the oven while they baked to make sure they rose...
... which they did 22 minutes later! I was so excited that I did a happy dance with my son, who had no idea why Mommy was jumping and up and down, or why these puffs were that exciting, but wouldn't say no to dancing time!
Then I poked each one with a some-what sharp knife...
...and stuck them back in the oven for 10 more minutes with a spoon in the door. I'm assuming this is to dry them out even more.
Then I put them on a rack to cool, and took a few for taste testing purposes.
It honestly was the perfect, savory bite! It was wonderfully salty and cheesy, and the puff was nice and light and crispy. It makes a perfect hors d’oeuvre, or savory!
And it was husband approved!
I would certainly recommend not only this for everyone to try, but also that this recipe is really easy to follow. Thank you Julia Child for your thorough knowledge.
But, best of all, I was able to try some new cooking skills, which I'm excited to try again soon!
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