Cheddar Dill Gougères

If you've got a moment PLEASE VOTE for my entry in the Twice Baked Potato Contest! You can vote once a day for the next week! 

This weekend is Christmas! I know what you're thinking "It's March and you're crazy!" For most people holidays occur on set days on calenders. Christmas is December 25th, Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday in November, and the Fourth of July is so set as a date we forget it has a name. I bet that if I said Independence Day you'd think of a Will Smith movie instead.

Holidays for me are a little less set. My parents are divorced and my sisters live in Oregon with their mother so.... we reschedule holidays! Mom gets the real holidays, Dad gets a day near the holidays, and my sisters get the first day I see them before or after a holiday. So now that you're assured I'm crazy in a whole other way, I'll say it one more time: This weekend is Christmas!

I spent most of this last weekend shopping for presents for my little sisters. If you remember the kinds of gifts you wanted at 16 and 18....well, it's going to be a bit hard to convince either Jacob or Edward to show up with a bow on their head. Once you rule teenage heartthrobs out, it's a whole other ball game. What else is there? Clothes, shoes, candy with screaming children nearby, and pain killers, lots of them, full of caffeine that kept me up until 5 am.

A few good things came out of being wide awake all night: I read all of Alice in Wonderland, came up with a FUN present plan, and made gougeres for whenever I would wake up if I ever in fact fell asleep.

Gougeres are one of my favorite things to make. They are simple, fast (thought I had plenty of time), delicious, light as air, and one of the few things I don't feel guilty eating ten of in one sitting. Though shown here are the regular puffs, you can make four inch wide puffs for sandwiches, which I'll show you as a post when I'm back from my vacations. Don't hate me for being a tease, I just had too much time to think, and not enough stores open at 4 am to make them with!

So with that, a Merry Christmas to me, and an enjoy the gougeres to you! If you have any theme candy ideas from major world capitols let me know! I'll be gathering them through Wednesay!

Cheddar Dill Gougères

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup skim milk

½ cup unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons

Large pinch of kosher salt

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 large eggs

1 cup cheddar cheese, plus more for sprinkling

1 tsp. dill, plus more for sprinkling

Freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 400. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a small saucepan, bring the water, milk, butter and salt to a boil. Add the flour and stir until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan, and dries out a bit. Roughly two minutes.

Turn the dough out into a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly between each one. Add the cheddar cheese, dill and pepper.

Transfer the dough to a pastry bag with a half inch tip (or a disposable bag with the tip cut off) and pipe tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheets at least two inches apart.

Sprinkle with cheese and additional dill. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. Serve warm or room temperature.

The gougers can be frozen or refrigerated. To reheat, cook in an 350 degree oven for at least five minutes, or until piping hot and crisped. 

Sharp Cheddar Scottish Shortbread

The sharp cheddar crisped inside and out of this Scottish shortbread is addictive. These savory cookies are hard to put down.

Did I say they were hard to put down? Apparently they are also hard to keep your hands on! Butchie picked out an "ugly" cookie for us to split. I turned my back and she ate my half! So she picked out another less-than-ideal cookie for me to try. She. Ate. It. Too. [I apologize for nothing. Move faster next time. --B.]

Needless to say SHE loved these cookies right off the bat. Took me a few hours to actually get to eat one for myself! Not fair!....okay, so I was horribly busy. These little ditties are just one of the many treats we put together for joint efforts at holiday treat boxes for our friends. Butch made a few things, I made a few things, and then we spent a whole night making cookies together. By the end of the night we had twenty different "combo packs" of two very different varieties, hurting feet and bags under our eyes. It was a LONG night. [So long I needed to eat extra cookies for fuel. Lots of extra cookies. --B.]

I've hardly finished eating the last of the cookies and I already and plotting my next batch. Butchie may not be invited, but only so I can get a few to eat as well!

If somehow this post makes it up without her additions (sad! they are so funny!) it is because she is out West for her father's retirement from the Air Force. [24 years as an F-15 pilot, with more time spent in the cockpit of that plane than anyone on active duty as of today. Why yes, my dad IS a rock star. Oh hey, I made it to the post in time! --B.] He's getting a nice big ceremony that she wouldn't miss for the world. [Lucky you, I managed both :) Anyway, these cookies are delicious, even if they're more like a cheese cracker than a "cookie," exactly. Enjoy! And many congratulations to my dad, who might just end up lucky enough to have a batch of these made for him while I'm home. --B.]

Cheers!

Sharp Cheddar Scottish Shortbread

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Pinch of cayenne pepper

8 ounces extra-sharp white Cheddar cheese, grated

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

Using electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat together butter, salt, black pepper, and cayenne at medium speed just until blended. Add Cheddar and flour and mix at low speed just until smooth. Press dough into disk, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for half an hour.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

On lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4-inch-thick round. Using 1 1/2 round cutter, cut out rounds and arrange 1 1/2 inches apart on baking sheets.

Bake until lightly golden and beginning to brown on edges, about 11 to 13 minutes. Cool on sheets.