A croquembouche (french for "crunch in mouth") is a dramatic dessert made of an arrangement of profiteroles held together by a caramel glaze. I've been wanting to try my hand at choux pastry for a while now, so I was very excited to read about this month's challenge! Choux is an unusual pastry that is cooked on the stove top, and then piped into the appropriate shapes for baking (either balls, which become profiteroles when filled with cream, or longer stripes which turn into eclairs).
My pastry turned out quite runny and loose, which translated into groans of distress when my first batch of UFO-shaped puffs emerged from the oven. Some hastily added spoonfuls of flour later, the situation had improved substantially...
...and my beautifully rounded puffs meant that a croquembouche might materialize after all.
I made my pastry cream the night before and flavored it with a few generous splashes of Amarula, a lovely South African cream liqueur based on the marula fruit. Pastry cream keeps well in the fridge for a day or two and is much easier to pipe when cold, so it was the perfect make-ahead component.
After my puffs got their bellies filled with cream, it was time to glue them together into an elegant pile. I had to do some improvising to create a conical mold and ended up stuffing one of my small piping bags with paper towels, covering it in oiled foil, and taping it to a silpat-lined baking tray. Matt, who usually meanders into the kitchen every quarter hour or so to check on my daring progress, gave the cone a skeptical raised eyebrow and didn't ask.
After the tower was built and solid, I carefully twisted out the cone. I was too busy during the actual building process keeping my fingertips from being zapped by boiling caramel to take pictures, but the final result turned out quite nicely. There was a definite croque of hard caramel as you bit into each puff, and then the swish of Amarula pastry cream inside provided a creamy contrasting kick - not to mention the fun of cracking your bite off the main tower!
You can see some of that nice crunchy caramel on the bottom of this specimen!
This project took me the better part of an afternoon, but it would be a fun and impressive dessert for a dinner party, especially one where the food is heavy and nobody wants more than a nibble to finish off the meal.
One nibble, two nibbles... gone!
A printable version of the recipe, with my tweaks, can be found here.
5 comments:
Your croquembouche looks beautiful! Very well done again!
Cheers,
Rosa
This desert is what the "New Zealand Masterchef" two finalists had to create (amongst other dishes) to find the winner. It was described as a French Wedding Cake. The winner's custard was too runny and he had to make another batch! They had 3 hours to make the whole desert. What suspenseful TV! Ask your dad about how to keep your fingers safe when working with hot caramel.. something about iced water and dipping fingers maybe?
Very well done sweetie!!!! Very proud of you!!!
Wow what a beautiful croquembouche.
Absolutely stunning! You were much braver than I was when it came to the caramel, but it paid off!
My puff mixture was too runny as well, and I had meant to ask if it was possible to add more flour at the end. Thanks for answering my (unasked) question! Your croquembouche looks fantastic, by the way.
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