Bacon and Apricot Gougères

The Art.
    Every summer I host a Bacon Explosion Party, and this year I smoked a whopping three Bacon Explosions for my dearest friends. This means that I rolled up 6lbs of sausage inside 6lbs of bacon, slathered it with two bottles of BBQ sauce, and smoked it for a day. As you can imagine, I had a substantial amount of bacon fat left over after frying up all this bacon. I strained the fat and tucked it away in the fridge, and I've been experimenting with adding it to different foods ever since. My most recent bacon fat adventure was when I tried my hand at making gougères.
    Gougères are a French puff made from choux pastry and cheese that are light and crisp, and are arguably the perfect party pastry. By replacing some of the butter in the pastry with bacon fat, I added a hint of bacon flavor. I then filled the airy puffs with a slightly sweet apricot gruyere mousse, to provide the perfect balance of sweet and salty. These pastries are wonderful to have as an appetizer or with an aperitif.

The Science.
    Needless to say, traditional French choux pastry recipes do not include bacon fat. Rather, the dough is made with butter that is melted into the liquid component, then mixed with the flour. Substituting fats in baking recipes can be a tricky business, and this goes double for pastry dough. Different fats used in baking are composed of different types of lipids, which have varying melting temperatures and reactivity with other ingredients. Butter is composed of milk fat, which is made up of mostly saturated fats and some cholesterol, and has a melting temperature of 90^oF [1]. Shortening, on the other hand, is solely composed of hydrogenated unsaturated vegetable oils, and has a melting temperature of 117^oF. The problem with shortening is that doesn't add any flavor. Lard is similar to butter in that it is made up of mostly saturated fat, has a low melting temperature of 86^oF, and provides scrumptious flavor [2]. The main difference between butter and lard is that lard does not have the small water component that butter does. However, equivalent amounts of lard can be substituted in most recipes without altering texture or flakiness [3]. I consider bacon fat to be lard's sexy cousin because it has a wonderful smokey salty flavor from the cured meat. Just be careful when using bacon fat in a recipe, it's strong stuff and can easily overpower your other flavors.

The Recipe.

Bacon Gougères: (makes 48)
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup milk
3 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons bacon fat*
6 eggs
3/4 cup finely grated gruyere, divided
1 egg yolk

    Preheat oven to 415^oF and place racks in middle and lowest position. Sift together flour and salt. In a saucepan, combine water, milk, butter, and bacon fat and place over medium heat, stirring constantly. Once the mixture reaches a boil, remove from heat and immediately add the flour/salt, stirring rapidly with a spoon.

    Put saucepan over heat again, and stir dough until it begins to pull away from the sides and form a ball. Turn dough out into a large bowl, and lightly beat with bread hook attachment for 30 seconds to cool. While the dough is cooling, beat eggs in a medium bowl. Gradually add eggs to dough while beating on medium speed, then continue to beat until a wooden spoon or spatula stands in the bowl, about 4 minutes. Fold in 1/2 cup cheese.
    Line two baking sheets with waxed paper. Spoon or pipe dough in 1 tablespoon rounds aprroximately 2 inches apart onto baking sheet. Lightly beat egg yolk with 1 teaspoon water and use to brush tops of dough. Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup gruyere over tops. Sprinkle a few drops of water on the baking sheet with your fingertips, being careful not to dampen the dough.

    Place baking sheets in oven, and pour 1/4 cup water onto the bottom on the oven right before closing the door. The water will create steam in the oven which helps the gougères rise. Bake for 15 minutes, then very very gently switch the baking sheets, so the top one is now on bottom and vice versa. Switching the rack position halfway through ensures that all the puffs with bake evenly. Try not to knock them too hard while moving the trays so the gougères keep air inside them. Pour another 1/4 cup water onto the bottom of the oven, and bake 15 more minutes.  If your gougères start to deflate while you're moving them, don't worry. The second steam burst will help them puff right back up.
    When the gougères are done baking, they should be deep golden brown and sound hollow when you tap the bottom. Turn the oven off, leave the door ajar, and let the gougères dry in the oven 10 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Gougères can be stored in an air-tight container in the freezer for up to 2 months. (Recipe modified from [4])
*To make bacon fat, fry up 6-8 slices of thick-cut bacon in a pan to your desired crispness. Eat that delicious bacon. Once the fat in the pan has cooled, strain it through a coffee filter into a small bowl and refrigerate until needed.

Apricot gruyere mousse:
4 egg whites
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon brandy
1 1/4 cup 40% heavy cream
1/2 cup apricot preserves
3/4 cup finely grated gruyere

    In a large bowl, combine egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar, and brandy. Set bowl over a saucepan with 1 inch simmering water. Beat on high speed until stiff peaks form, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and beat for an additional 2 minutes, set aside. In another large bowl, beat cream on high speed over an ice bath until stiff peaks form. Fold into egg whites. Fold in apricot preserves and gruyere. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before filling gougères.

Assembly:
    If gougères have been frozen, warm in a 300^oF oven until crisp, then cool to room temperature on wire racks. Open the gougères halfway by gently prying at the side with fingertips. Spoon in approximately two tablespoons of mousse. Serve immediately.

1. American Baking Essentials Course 201. "Butter, Shortening, and Oils: The Fats We Bake With." The Prepared Pantry, 2005.
2. O Chef, "Turning the Heat up on Crisco (and Lard)." Available here.
3.  All Recipes, "Common Ingredient Substitutions." Available here.
4. Rogers, Juliet. The Essential Baking Cookbook. Millers Point, Australia: Murdoch Books, 2010.