Crab Puffs, and Herb Goat Cheese Puffs

So it was the night before Easter, and we had just got home from a day early Easter gathering at Josh's parents house.  We were invited to my aunt's house for Easter dinner the following afternoon, and we were supposed to be bringing an appetizer.  Now was the moment of truth.  We had to figure out what to bring.  The only problem with people knowing that you like to cook, is that you can't show up with a store bought dish, and so we started to brainstorm on options.


We had received a Cookie Press for Christmas from Josh's family, and I thought it would be fun to make something with it, so I pulled it out of the closet.  We had never used it before, and didn't know how it was going to work, but thought it might be fun to make something with it.  We were actually thinking of making Spritz crackers, and were going through the recipe book that came with the cookie press.  We came across a Savory Cream Puff recipe, and knew that was what we wanted to make.  With neither of us ever making them before, it would be fun to make, and another thing that we could say we have made before.


So the basic cream puff recipe seems to be pretty much the same everywhere that I looked.  They all have little changes depending on the type of cream puffs that you are making.  This one is call "Gougeres (Basil Cream Puffs)".  We liked the way that they looked and tasted.  We used the star tip to make both the puffs, and the filling look interesting.


We decided to make a double batch and do two different types of filling.  We did a batch with a crab filling, and a batch with a herbed cheese spread.  The crab spread was a little lighter, and the cheese spread was rich and creamy.  Both were wonderful, and were a hit.  These ended up looking as good as they tasted, and we will definitely make these again.

Gougeres (Basil Cream Puffs)
1 cup water
6 tbsp butter
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup all purpose flour
4 eggs
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp basil


Preheat oven to 400°F.  Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.


Place water, butter and salt in medium saucepan, bring to a boil.  Lower heat, add flour all at once.  Continue to cook, stirring constantly until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan and forms ball.  Remove from heat.
(The first batch I made, the following step was made by hand with a bowl and a wooden spoon.  The second batch, I got out the Kitchenaid mixer, as I didn't like doing it by hand on the first batch.  You can choose which way you do it, based on if you have a Kitchenaid, or not.  Both work fine.  If you use the mixer,place the dough ball in the mixer bowl, and let sit for a few minutes to let the dough cool slightly before proceeding.)
Add eggs one at a time, making sure each egg is well blended before adding the next egg.  Stir in Parmesan cheese, garlic powder and basil.  Fill your cookie press, or pastry bag with the dough, and put on the star tip.  Pipe the mixture on prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 20 minutes (ours took 23 minutes) or until puffed and golden brown.  Makes 2 dozen mini gougeres.

Crab Filling:
8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons finely chopped chives
8 ounces fresh imitation crab or shrimp
Fresh ground black pepper to taste


Add all ingredients to a bowl.  Because we were going to pipe the filling on the cream puffs, we used an immersion hand blender to mix all the ingredients together.  If you don't have an immersion blender, a food processor or finely mincing the crab and onion should also work. 
Mix crab filling a day ahead, cover and refrigerate.  


Herbed Cheese Spread

8 oz package cream cheese
1 (4oz) package goat cheese
1 tbsp fresh chopped chives (or 1 tsp dried chives)
1 tbsp fresh chopped parsley (or 1 tsp dried parsley flakes)
1/4 tsp garlic powder


Place all ingredients in food processor, or in our case we used an immersion hand blender, blend until smooth. 


Filling the Gougeres
Cut the Gougeres approximately in half.  You can use pictures for reference.


Put the filling in a cookie press, or piping bag with a star tip.  Pipe the filling out onto each of the mini gougeres.  You can make it look as pretty as you want, but if you don't want to pipe the filling onto them, you could also just spoon it on.