Savory Pumpkin & Sage Gougeres

I had nothing but trouble with these little things. Called cheese puffs and other similar names, what gougeres are is basically a savory cream puff. My problems started with the words "don't let the water and butter come to a boil." I've made a lot of cream puffs, and you always have the water come to a boil and not just a plain boil, a rolling boil. It's the temperature you need to get the flour to clump. My batter was so runny, I had to put it in mini muffin tins to even cook it. While it was cooking, I check the cookbook Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan in which she has a recipe for gougeres. Yep - hard boiling water. So my gougeres actually turned out to be tiny quiches - they didn't puff much either. But on the good side, they have a fabulous taste, as puffs or quiches. I'm going to try them again with boiling water because I think I would like them even more as actual gougeres.

This is what they were supposed to look like from the webpage Cookin' Canuck.