Jalapeno Poppers Puffs

Jalapeno Poppers Puffs are light and delicious cheese puffs, with the fun twist of a jalapeno popper. They’re an impressive appetizer for your next party or game day spread. With cream cheese and jalapenos these gougères come together easily and bake up puffy, tender, and hollow inside with a crispy outside.

Savory and so delicious, these Jalapeño Poppers Gougère are made from French choux pastry dough. Don’t let that fancy name worry you though, these are really easy to make and so much fun. I have plenty of tips to walk you through making these.

Serve them at a fancy holiday party, or just for hanging out pool side in the summer. These appetizer puffs do it all!

We appreciate your support

Please let me know if you have any questions about this recipe. I read all the comments myself and I try to help as soon as I can. I have readers from all levels of comfort and experience in the kitchen on my site, and I’ve tried to answer some of your questions already in the post. But if I’ve missed anything, please feel free to leave a comment and ask.

What is gougères in English?

Don’t let the fancy French word scare you off.

Gougeres is just a cheesy cream puff dough that’s filled with eggs, baked, and rises quite a bit so that it’s super fun to eat.

And, in this case, the cheese here is cream cheese and cheddar cheese. Along with the spice of a bit of jalapeno, these fun puffs will quickly be a favorite!

Freaky Friday

I’m very excited to be participating in this summer 2022 edition of Freaky Friday, an old-fashioned blog hop! With this wonderful recipe for Jalapeño Poppers Gougères from The Wimpy Vegetarian, and this recipe makes the perfect appetizer for any party!

This blog hop is always so much fun; it’s hosted by the talented and lovely Michaela at An Affair from the Heart. I’ve known Michaela for many years, and am always so happy to participate in her events. Please do stop by her blog and check out her tasty food.

See all of our 2022 Freaky Friday Summer Edition Recipes

Hosted by – An Affair from the Heart

• An Affair from the Heart – Moose Munch Popcorn
• Aunt Bee’s Recipes – Breakfast Egg Bites
• The Culinary Compass – Pull Apart Garlic Bread
• Devour Dinner – BBQ Nachos
• Family Around the Table – Grilled Teriyaki Chicken Salad
• Feast + West – Peach Whiskey Smash
• Home Cooked Harvest – Strawberry Cheesecake Bites
• Hostess at Heart – Peanut Butter Cookie
• Kathryn’s Kitchen Blog – Cilantro Lime Shrimp Recipe
• Off the Eaten Path –  Cheerwine Bourbon Slush Cocktails
• The Speckled Palate – Lemon Cooler Cookies
• Sue Bee Homemaker – Fruit Dip Without Marshmallow Cream
• The Wimpy Vegetarian – How to Make Enchilada Sauce

The Wimpy Vegetarian

I’ve known Susan at The Wimpy Vegetarian for a few years now. Her recipes, pictures, and blog have always impressed me!

Of course, you shouldn’t be too surprised by that, I mean her blog is a mostly vegetarian blog just like mine, where she is mainly vegetarian and her husband eats meat.

Plants are a major focus for her blog. Seasonal and delicious offerings are always on the table, and she’s pleasantly wonderful. (side note: I happen to really love my community of blogger friends!)  

Susan has culinary school training from Tante Marie Cooking School in San Francisco. And, to top it all off, she lives in California like I do.

Susan describes her blog as, “I help busy people simplify vegetarian meals so they can put healthy + delicious meals on the table faster and more easily, and have more time for life. After all, there are plenty of things to stress about in life. One of them shouldn’t be dinner.”

You just have to love that!

I had a hard time deciding what to make for this Freaky Friday event. She has great recipes like Lobster & Crab Chowder, Potato Au Gratin with Poblanos, and Sweet Potato Latkes.

And her dessert recipes for Peppermint Mocha Panna Cotta and 3 ingredient pains au chocolat just called my name!

But in the end, this jalapeno popper puff recipe won out for me because, well, you know I love appetizers and game day grub!

Pro tips for making the best gougères

Be sure to scroll down to the printable recipe card with full ingredient amounts and instructions.

Let’s talk briefly about the choux pastry. The dough puffs up with the oven’s heat because of the moisture content in the dough, from the butter, water, flour, and eggs not because of any yeast or other chemical leveners.

The biggest tip I can give you is that the puffing up is due to a thorough mixing of all the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. So don’t be timid or scared, just mix that bad boy up.

get ready

First, be sure to have everything measured out and ready to go. Once you start cooking, and the water and butter come to a boil, you’ll want to just be able to dunk the ingredients in.

Place the water, butter, and salt in a medium saucepan.

Measure the flour in a small bowl.

Crack all the eggs into another small bowl.

Measure the Dijon, cheddar cheese (except the 2 tablespoons for topping), cream cheese, and black pepper into another bowl.

Make sure you grab all the equipment you need like the mixer, if you want to use a stand mixer or hand mixer, spoons, and be sure to set up the baking sheets with parchment paper. Preheat the oven.

Now that all your ingredients are measured out and your equipment is ready to go, you’re all set to cook!

Make the dough

Heat the butter, water, and salt over medium heat, uncovered, until it comes to a full boil. Don’t be shy with the boiling, you need it to be nice and hot. Simmering isn’t enough to bring the flour to the consistency of dough that you need.

Once boiling, remove the pan from the heat, and drop all the flour in all at once, and start stirring with a wooden spoon to bring it into a dough as quickly as possible. Continue stirring for another minute to let some of the heat out. You’ll see the dough starting to stick a little to the bottom of the pan. You are drying the dough it out (and that’s good).

Transfer the dough to a bowl and add the eggs one at a time, completely incorporating each egg before adding the next. You can do this step by hand, in a stand mixer, or with a hand mixer. The electric mixer will likely get you a more dramatic rise in the choux pastry than just doing it by hand.

Don’t worry if the batter separates and looks curdled at first. Keep beating, and it will come together nicely. Keep beating to get the dough as smooth as possible; extra beating is what helps ensure a round, even puffing of the choux dough.

If your dough is too wet after adding the eggs, you did not cook your dough enough.

spoon or pipe it out

Once the dough is ready, you can spoon it out in tablespoon sized drops, or you can pipe it.

To pipe it, spoon the dough into a ziptop bag, and scrape the dough to one of the bottom corners of the bag, and snip off the corner. Pipe them out into small rounds.

Dip your finger into a small amount of olive oil, and round off the top pointy bit of each puff.

Top each puff with a sprinkle of cheddar cheese and a piece of jalapeno. These puffs would also be amazing topped with a candied jalapeno.

bake them up

Pop in the oven for 10 minutes, and rotate the pan from bottom to top and from front to back. Bake for another 8 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown.

Remove the puffs from the oven, keep on the baking sheet for one minute, and move to a cooling tray.

Can Gougères be made ahead?

Yes, these are a great make ahead appetizer option!

And, there are a couple different methods you can use to make them ahead.

Make the dough and store it.

Follow the instructions to make the dough, and pipe them into the small rounds on the parchment paper. Cover loosely with plastic wrap. Then, freeze those rounds.

Once frozen, just put them in a large ziptop freezer bag, and pop them in the freezer for up to 2 months.

When you’re ready to bake them, just pop them in the preheated oven, no need to defrost, and bake from a frozen state adding 1 to 2 minutes to the baking time.

Leftover baked gougères

You can either make a bunch and keep them for later, or if you have leftovers, they store really well.

After baking, allow them to cool completely.

Store in the freezer or fridge. Place them in an airtight container in the fridge for about 3 days or the freezer for up to 2 months.

Reheat them in a 350° F oven for 3-5 minutes just before serving.

What to serve with gougères?

These are a great snack. I can see them being the perfect snack to serve poolside with some other healthy and delicious appetizers like Pineapple serrano hummus, Red pepper garlic dip, and some traditional grilled stuffed jalapenos. If you can’t get enough of the jalapeno poppers flavors, be sure to try my Jalapeno Popper Mummies and Spinach Dip stuffed Peppers.

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