RCE Garlic & Sapphires: Gougeres!

Christine was on a roll the last little while getting her recipes done - and this one, well... just read for the whole story...

I was madly emailing Eric while making gougeres when we both decided to just IM chat in real time as the gougeres were baking. Of course, then I was able to make real time updates on the situation--which was rapidly going downhill. I find "bloopers" almost as enlightening and definitely more amusing than kitchen/cooking successes, so I hope you're entertained as I detail...GLOOPY GOUGERES (gougeres are supposed to be super fluffy poofy spheres akin to cream puffs, definitely not gloopy).

I met each weird development with stoicism, even though inside I was shrieking, "This is NOT right! This is not right! " I was wishing i was cooking alongside someone when Eric logged in. I'd just popped my first batch into the oven, and decided to open my laptop and distract myself from the non-poofing gougeres....


CHRISTINE: halfpoofed gougeres!
ERIC: LOL - only halfpoofed?
CHRISTINE: I'm making my second batch which I sort of "dried out" beforehand ERIC: and the choux paste was totally balled up and firm before adding the eggs?
CHRISTINE: yeah totally
ERIC: huh... I wonder if she was using smaller eggs? 5 medium = 3 extra large? (at this point I noted that Reichl did not specify egg size, but the standard is "large eggs" and so she should have noted usage of eggs of other size)
ERIC: I'm laughing my ass off over here! LOL gloooooooooopy!
CHRISTINE: but the second batch seems to be poofing more since I "dried out" the choux paste on the stove on low heat while the first batch baked
CHRISTINE: i decided to try to make the 2 batches differently to get an idea of different techniques i mean even pepin's recipe says to dry out the mixture if it gets too wet--(pause here while I go to check on the 2nd batch) ok 2nd batch is not much better
ERIC: I'm thinking that the extra eggs are just making it too wet - I remember the mix being dry as hell and hard to pipe so perhaps it really just is too many eggs... Do they taste ok? that's the important thing, right?
CHRISTINE: they taste ok i think it's the 5 eggs plus she should have said "finely diced" gruyere and in fact i think it could have been grated the diced grueyer never quite melted all the way into the mixture
CHRISTINE: so in sum they taste okay that's what we'll do then but the choux paste was too gloopy due to too many eggs and chunks of cheese and drying out the mixture for the 2nd batch did not save the gougeres
ERIC: LOL

Now, to help Christine out, I found the recipe for Thomas Keller's gougeres in the French Laundry cookbook - and made them this evening. Much better. Ms. Reichl, your recipe just doesn't work. Whoops! Forgot to test it I think!
Originally uploaded to Flickr by Smitten