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⅔ cup / 160 ml beer / ale OR water

⅓ cup / 80 ml milk

8 tablespoons butter, thickly sliced

¾ teaspoon fine grain sea salt

1 cup / 130 g all-purpose flour

4 large eggs, room temperature

1 ¼ cup / 3 ¼ oz / 90 g sharp white cheddar, grated on box grater

1 serrano chile, minced (optional)

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1. Preheat oven to 425F / 220C, with a rack in top third. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Bring the beer, milk, butter, and salt just to a boil in a large (thick-bottomed) saucepan over medium-high heat. Dial back the heat a bit. Add the flours and use a wooden spoon to stir, stir, stir. Really go at it. Keep going for a couple minutes, until the dough comes together smoothly, and gives off a faint toasty scent. Remove from heat and let cool, stirring occasionally to let heat out, for about ten minutes. Long enough that the eggs won't cook when you attempt to work them in.

3. One at a time, add each of the four eggs, stirring vigorously after each addition. Really work each egg in. Stir in 1 cup of the cheese, and right away pipe (using a pastry bag) or scoop gougères onto the prepared baking sheet in heaping tablespoon-sized dollops, leaving at least 1 ½ inches between each. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

4. Place in the oven, bake for FIVE minutes, then dial the heat back to 375, and bake another 20- 25 minutes, or until gougères are deeply golden all over, puffed, and well set. If you notice the gougeres in the back browning much more quickly than the ones in the front, quickly but carefully, spin the sheet 180 degrees about ⅔ through.

5. Alternately, if you aren't baking the gougères immediately: shape pans of gougère dough, sprinkle with cheese, and freeze for ½ hour. Transfer to a freezer bag at this point, until you're ready to bake. Bake straight from the freezer, same as above, with a couple extra minutes.

Gougères Variations

I made this batch (pictured) with ale, a strong cheddar cheese, and one well-chopped serrano pepper. But the variations you can dream up are endless. Some ideas:

Fennel & Cheddar Gougères: Add a teaspoon of crushed fennel seeds. It's nice with the beer and cheese.

Mustard Sesame Gougères: Add a couple teaspoons of strong mustard and sprinkle the gougeres with sesame seeds prior to baking. A bit of fresh thyme is nice here as well.

Whole Grain Flour Gougères: Substitute in up to half the weight in flour with whole wheat flour or rye flour.

Spicy Lemon & Cayenne Gougères: Swap in goat cheese for the cheddar and stir in the zest of one lemon and ½ teaspoon of cayenne.

See what I mean? Just start playing around. You can also play with color. As I mention up above, you can replace some of the liquid in this recipe with fresh, strong juices. For example, carrot juice, turmeric water, beet juice, etc. Have fun experimenting!