It’s always tricky to bake something you have never actually eaten before. If you don’t like it, is it because you did a terrible job or because the taste is so new to you.

Luckily, there is no such conundrum with this recipe, it combines the best qualities of gougeres with mochi. Imagine a crisp crust with a glutinous but airy center. This is what the British call a “moreish” recipe, you cannot stop at one.

I looked up several recipes online and settled on this one from the NYT . It starts like a choux pastry recipe but with tapioca flour and then the cheese is folded in.  I always weigh all my ingredients- especially in a brand new recipe. Also- a stand mixer seems essential for this recipe, this is just a super tacky dough.

Ingredients:

• 335 grams tapioca starch (about 3 cups)
• 2 tsp kosher salt 
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• ⅔ cup whole milk
• 2/3 cup water
• ½ cup canola oil
• 1 ½ tablespoons butter, softened
• 2 large eggs
• 94 grams grated Pecorino Romano cheese (about ¾ cup)
• 94 grams grated Parmesan cheese (about ¾ cup)

Boil the water, milk, butter and oil together.

Add to the starch, baking powder and salt in the bowl of your stand mixer. Dump the liquids in and using a paddle attachment, mix at low speed till the ingredients come together (4 minutes for me).

Add the eggs- mix on low for 4 minutes, scrape the bottom and paddle and mix again for 4–6 minutes till the dough gets tacky and forms strands with the edges.

Add the cheese and mix for another  minute. Scrape the bottom of the bowl and cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Divide the dough using a bench scraper into 8ths and then into 32s. Make 32 small balls using tapioca flour to dust your hands.

Bake at 375 for 20-23 minutes till pale golden brown. Bake only as many as will be immediately consumed. Apparently these get hard as they cool. We did not test this hypothesis since all the puffs were consumed within 10 minutes.