Ham and Cheese Puff

Easter in quarantine. The word "quarantine" and the word "Easter" sit next to each other with the awkwardness of strangers at a dinner party — one is about isolation and the other is about resurrection, and the distance between the two is the distance the world has traveled in three weeks, from normal to this, from church pews to living rooms, from the communal breaking of bread to the private breaking of everything we thought was permanent.

We had church on the laptop. The pastor of St. Michael's delivered the Easter service via video, and we watched on the couch — five people, one screen, the hymns sung quietly because singing feels wrong when you are watching a pastor address an empty sanctuary. Mama watched the screen with confusion. She said, "Where is the congregation?" I said, "They're watching at home." She said, "Church is not at home. Church is at church." The statement was both theologically debatable and emotionally correct, and I did not argue.

Joy had Easter at Magnolia House. Mrs. Patterson sent photographs: Joy in a yellow dress, Joy eating ham, Joy with a paper crown. The photographs were the Easter I could not give her and the Easter she received anyway, from people who are not her family but who are caring for her the way family cares — with attention, with food, with the understanding that holidays must be celebrated even when the celebration is smaller than the holiday deserves.

I made the full Easter dinner: ham with brown sugar glaze, deviled eggs, collard greens, mac and cheese, sweet potato casserole, cornbread, peach cobbler. The meal was excessive for five people, and the excess was deliberate, because Easter is not the holiday for moderation. Easter is the holiday for abundance — the abundance of a God who defeats death, the abundance of a mother who defeats the pandemic by cooking more food than the table can hold, the abundance of a family that is alive and together and eating ham on a Sunday in April while the world counts its dead.

Mama blessed the food. Her voice was thin. The words were slow. But the words were there — "For this food and for this family" — and the words were enough, and the enough was the resurrection, small and domestic and real.

The ham was the center of that table — it always is at Easter — and after a day of watching church on a laptop and waiting on photographs of Joy in her yellow dress, I needed the kitchen to feel like something I could actually hold onto. This Ham and Cheese Puff is the kind of recipe that belongs on an Easter table: it’s warm and golden and unashamedly rich, the sort of dish that says the holiday matters even when the holiday is smaller than it used to be. I’ve made it since, and every time I pull it out of the oven I think of Mama’s slow, thin voice saying “For this food and for this family” — because that’s exactly what this is for.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 50 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

2 cups diced cooked ham
1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup shredded Gruyère or Swiss cheese
1 cup whole milk
4 large eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives or green onion (optional)

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Grease a 9-inch square baking dish or a deep-dish pie plate generously with butter or nonstick spray.
Whisk the batter. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk until smooth. Add the melted butter and whisk to combine.
Add dry ingredients. Sift in the flour and baking powder. Add the dry mustard, garlic powder, and black pepper. Stir until a smooth, pourable batter forms with no lumps.
Fold in the filling. Stir in the diced ham, cheddar, and Gruyère until evenly distributed throughout the batter. Add chives or green onion if using.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and spread evenly. Bake for 30–35 minutes, until the top is deeply golden, the center is set, and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Rest and serve. Let the puff rest for 5 minutes before slicing. It will settle slightly — this is normal. Cut into squares or wedges and serve warm.

Nutrition (per serving)

Ham and Cheese Puff — The Easter Table That Refused to Be Small