Who can resist one of these delightful morsels?
Cheese puffs are so tasty, so brilliant on a platter of nibbles, especially with some spicy tomato relish as a dipping sauce. Now you can go a step further with these gluten-free cheese and corn puffs.
I’ve been trying to find out about the history of cheese puffs with little success. It looks like they’ve been around since the 1970s at least. They were probably served at parties alongside gherkins and slices of kabana sausage skewered onto toothpicks. I can just see it… there were probably even some brown and orange patterned serviettes being handed around as well.
It looks like cheese puffs morphed into Twisties and other processed snacks once the commercial food industry got a hold of them, but I much prefer the homemade version, especially if they’re served warm from the oven.
There are many versions of cheese puffs – they can be made by dropping spoonfuls of the mixture onto a tray, or in a mini-muffin tin, which is my preference.
This version is also great if you’ve got a hankering for a gluten-free corn muffin. Gluten-free cheese and corn puffs are surely just as good!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy these. I’ve had a lot of success with them as a lunchtime food. I send them to school with some vegetable sticks and sliced cooked chicken breast. Save yourself the morning rush by preparing the veggie sticks in bulk at the start of the week. Same with the chicken breast.
And, as usual, these can be frozen and defrosted with ease.
The trick to this recipe is a hot oven. It will make quite a big batch, so if you don’t have enough mini muffin trays, you may need to cook the puffs in batches and let your tray cool down before spooning in the mixture for the next batch.
It’s kind of a miracle (not really) that I’m posting this recipe at all – my fig tree has just come into season, so I’m picking figs like there’s no tomorrow and making big batches of fig and ginger jam – my specialty. The season will go on for probably another month (provided the warm weather stays with us – it’s been an unusually cold summer), so I can’t say when I’ll have a chance to post the next recipe.
Anyway, there’s plenty on this site to keep you amused. Have a look around in my archives if you’re looking for recipe ideas, or even better, treat yourself to my eCookbook. Go on, you know you want to!
Gluten-free cheese and corn puffs
Ingredients
45 g tapioca flour
60 g brown rice flour
50 g sorghum flour
5 g psyllium husk
15 g baking powder
2 eggs, lightly beaten
120 g grated tasty cheese
150 g frozen or fresh corn kernels (from approximately 1 whole corn)
80 g Greek yoghurt
125 ml milk
125 ml oil
Generous pinch of salt
Method
Preheat oven to 200° Celsius (conventional oven) or 180° Celsius (fan forced oven). Grease all cavities in 3 mini muffin tins (25 ml capacity).
Into a large bow, sift the tapioca flour, brown rice flour, sorghum flour, psyllium husk and baking powder.
Add the egg, cheese, corn (if using frozen corn, defrost it before adding it to the bowl), yoghurt, milk, oil and salt.
Stir to combine all ingredients.
Spoon into mixture into muffin tins so that cavities are approximately three-quarters full.
Bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer, when inserted, comes out clean, and puffs are golden brown.
Makes 32.
I obviously don’t know the real answer but surely the cheese puff was borne of the 70s?! I can just see it sitting there, alongside the gherkins and pickled onions on a platter…