Alpha Bakers -- Savory Cream Puffs

I'm a big fan of things that puff. Popovers, clafoutis, dutch babies...

If it's eggy and has lots of steam in the middle, I'm in. Choux pastry, made in a pot, is fun to make and fun to eat. It's the same pastry that makes eclairs, and when you make those little puffs with savory fillings, the whole thing has an amusing whiff of mid-century cocktail party.

My puffs turned out perfectly--dried and hollow, and ready for filling. So I ate a bunch out of hand, with nothing in them. 

Later, the boy came over and we turned them into appetizer crackers. Below is his creation, with olive and mozzarella, sprinkled with paprika. Reading the posts from other group members, who filled them with anything from pastry cream to shrimp mash to the prescribed chicken liver faux gras, I realized that many people who will eat all kinds of meat mush and cream have a grudge against olives. To be honest, I'm not the biggest olive fan myself, but I'm glad to be able to share this picture to creep out the other olive haters. I ate the remainder plain for an early breakfast, drinking tea, thinking about soup nuts.  More power to all you savory adventurers, I've always had a soft spot for the bland and plain, especially when my throat's acting up as it is. So there you have it. Pate a choux! Gesundheit!

French Fridays with Dorie: Gougeres

Welcome to this week's edition of: Katya Joins Too Many Baking Groups.

This one is French Fridays with Dorie, where we cook from Dorie Greenspan's shiny new book Around My French Table, and we are making Gougeres, the savory version of cream puffs, made from pate a choux, soft shiny buttery eggy dough. Pate a choux means cabbage dough. Which I suppose is no funnier than pate a popelin, or pate a panterelli, both of which it used to be called. Dorie was with me when I made my first choux pastry, and her formula remains solid. For the cheese addition, I used a blended 4-cheese mix that my grandmother bought on sale and gave to myself, my mother, and my aunt. Yes, that's how we do these things.

Perfect for a smorgasboard dinner of cheese, bread, grapes, and vegetables. Good the next day for breakfast.  Pretty soon, I'm going to come up with some kind of clever gimmick for writing about FFwD, which includes savory as well as sweet dishes, so that all my posts aren't just I came, I saw, I conquered, but for now it's just the update, puffy as the gougeres themselves, to welcome in the fall and new cookery-bookery. Fresh bread is in the oven, apple-quince bundt cake on the counter, and fresh quinces on the table. Life, it is good.