Vegan Gougères (Cheese Puffs)

We’ve actually never had non-vegan gougères, but we know that they are cream puffs with cheese added to the dough. So that’s exactly what we did. The cheese we use in this recipe is Violife cheddar cheese shreds, but you can use any similar vegan cheese shreds. The cheese puffs bake up so nicely with a crispy exterior that is also slightly chewy and cheesy.

These vegan gougères or cheese puffs are a variation of our vegan cream puffs recipe. These are a bit easier since you don’t have to prepare a filling for them. The egg substitute we use in all of our pâte à choux recipes is Just Egg. We haven’t found another substitute that works for us yet.

Make sure to check out the recipe notes for additional information and tips.

If you try this recipe, leave us a comment below to let us know how it goes. We would love to hear from you!

Vegan Gougères (Cheese Puffs)

Little Lighthouse Baking Co.

Crunchy and cheesy balls of choux dough.

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Prep 5 minutes mins

Cook 45 minutes mins

Rest 10 minutes mins

Total 1 hour hr

Course Snack

Cuisine French, Vegan

Servings 30 pieces

Ingredients  

• ¼ cup unsweetened soy milk
• ¼ cup water
• ½ tbsp sugar
• 3 ½ tbsp vegan butter
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup Just Egg
• ¼ cup unsweetened soy milk (to mix with the Just Egg)
• ¼ tsp black salt/ kala namak (or just table salt)
• spices of your choosing (we used paprika and black pepper)
• 3 oz vegan shredded cheese

Instructions 

Measure and prepare the ingredients.

• Prepare and gather the ingredients for the choux pastry. Using the second listed amount of soy milk, mix it together with the Just Egg. Also add the spices and black salt to the Just Egg. Set aside for later.

  The black salt adds a bit of egg flavor, but you can leave it out or just use salt. We added about between an ⅛ tsp and ¼ tsp.
• You can give the vegan cheese a rough chop or put it in the food processor. I don't like having to wash extra dishes, so I just ripped and crushed the cheese up a bit with my hands.
  

Make the choux dough.

• Combine the water, soy milk, sugar, and butter in a small saucepan on medium heat. Mix it with a rubber spatula until the butter dissolves and then leave it for a few minutes until it starts to simmer.
  
• Once the liquid ingredients begin to simmer, carefully add in all the flour. Turn the heat to low. Continue to mix until the flour is incorporated and no white flour spots remain. The mix will thicken into a dough and almost form a ball. It should come off the sides of the pan easily. This shouldn’t take more than about 3 minutes. If you are not using a non-stick pan, there will be a thin film on the surface of the pot.
  
• Scoop the dough out of the pan and into a mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Avoid using a plastic bowl as the dough will be hot. Smash the dough down and flatten it to help release the heat. Leave it to cool for a few minutes. Alternatively, you can mix the dough over some ice or some ice packs to help it cool more quickly. You can also mix the dough for a few minutes in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment.
  
• Once your dough is just barely warm or room temperature, add in the Just Egg mixture a few tablespoons at a time. The amount is up to you. We’re just trying to avoid mixing a ball of dough sitting in egg soup—that would be more difficult to mix! Mix it with the rubber spatula and allow it to fully incorporate in between each addition. The final consistency should just barely run off the spatula and look pipe-able. Add more soy milk a tablespoon at a time if your mixture is still too thick.
  
• Next add in the shredded vegan cheese a bit at a time. I think we added it in thirds.
  
• This is what our dough looked like.
  
• Preheat the oven to 400° F.

Pipe the dough.

• Line a half sheet tray with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
  
• Scoop the choux mixture into a piping bag with a 1/2 inch opening or smooth tip.
  
• Pipe small mounds of batter, about 1 inch wide, by keeping the tip close to the parchment paper. This method gets you about 30 small cheese puffs. If you would like bigger ones, pipe bigger mounds, you will just end up with fewer puffs. You can wet the tip of your fingers and gently smooth out the mounds a bit.

  NOTE: Unlike traditional non-vegan choux, these do not puff as much. 
  

Bake.

• Place the baking tray into the middle rack of the oven. Allow the puffs to bake until evenly golden brown. It could take from 40-45 minutes. Do not open the oven door while they are baking! This will lower the temperature of the oven and could interrupt the production of the steam inside the puffs that they need to expand. You can check on their color in the final few minutes of baking.
  
• This is what our cheese puffs looked like about halfway through baking.
  
• Once the puffs are golden brown, turn off the oven and leave the oven door open a crack for 10 minutes to allow the inside of the puffs to continue to dry out while also cooling down.
  
• Remove the baking tray from the oven. The puffs will still be warm. Poke a hole in the bottom of each puff with a skewer. This allows the remaining steam to escape and helps to prevent them from deflating. This step is optional.
  
• Serve

  We sprinkled some dried chives over the top. These are best served freshly baked.
  

Notes

• In case you’re wondering, we use Earth Balance buttery sticks.
• We’ve tried making these before with semi-soft vegan cheese and it didn’t work out. The cheese melted into the batter adding a high amount of fat. So they weren’t able to rise in the oven and just fried in there.
• We only poked holes in a few of ours just for the pictures in the recipe, but we found that you don’t really have to. Ours didn’t deflate after resting.

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