Badabadum~! Badabadum~! (It may not be exactly correct but I am trying to hum the Indiana Jones theme song to build up some suspense...) I hereby christen this croquembouche the "Leaning Tower of Cream Puffs". *Proceeds to crack it open with a big ass kitchen knife.* Joking. I know that proper croquembouche christening involves a champagne bottle.
My favorite dad (still a favorite even if he's my only dad) is turning a lovely age this year. Taking mom's aging calender, the fact that she doesn't want to be married to an older man, and that everyone knows mom and dad are born in the same year. HAPPY 48th BIRTHDAY, DAD!!!
(As promised, this cake made from your favorite dessert will be recreated for you when I visit.)
The Leaning Tower of Cream Puffs AKA Croquembouche
The croquembouche or croque-en-bouche (French for crunch in the mouth) is a French cone-shaped dessert made from cream puffs held together by caramel. After reading blogs after blogs about this particular construction, I was worried for my skin, LITERALLY. The margin of safe error with burning-hot-caramel-cream-puff is very small. Final score: 1 blister on finger and 1 croquembouche. I am counting this as a win. Things could easily be much worse. After, the labour and injury, you can't help but stare and admire at your own handy work. Mine glazed over and my mind drifted to a very important question... How the hell am I going eat this thing?
Pâte à Choux or Puff Pastry
From James Peterson's Baking
Makes 1 1/2 pounds dough about thirty-five 2 1/2 inch cream puffs.
1/2 cup cup butter, sliced
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup flour
4 eggs
- Put the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the water, salt and sugar and bring the mixture to a boil. Add in the flour and stir until a ball of dough forms and it pulls away from the side. Remove from heat immediately. Stir until well mixed and for another additional minute for the dough to cool down a little.
- Transfer the dough to a bowl and mix in one eggs at a time. Only add the next one when the mixture is uniform. After all 4 eggs are added and well mixed, the flour should look droopy when you pull a wooden spoon through it.
- Use dough right away for best result. However, it will keep for several hours in the refrigerator.
- Preheat the oven to 400F. Pipe (using pastry bag) or drop (using 2 spoons) little mounds on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. USE THE PARCHMENT PAPER. Don't be stupid like me and think that the non-stick baking sheet could handle it. It can't. Each mound should be spaced apart by at least an inch so the puffed puffs don't touch. Bake for 20 minutes at 400F then another 20 minutes at 300F. Remove to cooling rack. Leave at room temp for a few hours. Puffs can be kept in storage in the freezer in ziploc. Do not prep the sheets in advance. Contact with the air will develop a crust on the surface of the mound, causing the puffs to not rise as well. Keep the extra batter in the fridge while waiting.
Pastry Cream Lightened with Whipped Cream (Lightening is optional)
Adapted from James Peterson's Baking
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1 egg
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup cornstarch
250 mL whipping cream (optional for lightening pastry cream)
(Optional items below. Use only if you wish to create stabilized whipped cream.)
1/2 teaspoon powdered gelatin
1/2 tablespoons water
- Bring milk to a simmer over medium heat in a medium saucepan and add the vanilla. Remove from heat. In a bowl, whisk together the sugar, egg, yolks and cornstarch until smooth. Stir half of the simmering milk in the egg mixture. Mix well then pour the egg mixture in the saucepan.
- Heat the mixture over medium heat. Constantly stir with a whisk until the cream comes to a boil and thickens. Transfer cream to large bowl and allow to cool. Congratulations, you've successfully made pastry cream! It can be used to fill the cream puffs as is but I like mine lightened with whipped cream. Go to if you are using and eating the cream puffs right away. Go to Step 4 if you are not for making stabilizing whipped cream.
- Whip the whipping cream until medium-hard peaks form. Continue to Step 5.
- In a cup, combine the gelatin and water. Allow for it to bloom then mash it up with a fork so there's no lumps. Combined the gelatin and 50 mL of whipping cream in a bowl and heat it over simmering pot of water. Heat and stir until the gelatin has melted. Remove from heat immediately and set aside. Whip the rest of the whipping cream to medium peak then pour the gelatin mixture slowly into the whipped cream while mixing. Continue whipping until medium-hard peaks form.
- Stir in 1/4 of the whipped cream into the pastry cream. This will help thin out the pastry a little bit before you add the rest of the whipped cream, preventing the air being crushed out of the whipped cream. Stir in the rest of the whipped cream in.
- Cover the cream with plastic wrap. Press it tight against the surface of the cream and use a second plastic wrap to cover the bowl for a seal. Refrigerate for 2 hours and up to a maximum of 4 days.
- Prick a small hole at the bottom of each puff with a toothpick.
- Fit a piping bag with a small round tip. Fill the bag to 1/2 full with pastry cream.
- Fill each puff through the small hole that you've made earlier.
You need pretty hot caramel for dipping the cream puffs and reheats makes the caramel darker each time. It is better to make caramel in small quantities as described in this recipe and make more when needed.
1 cup sugar
Sprinkle of cream of tartar
1/3 cup water
- Mix sugar, cream of tartar and water in a small saucepan and heat over medium-high heat. Do not stir and let the sugar boils until it turns to a golden colour. Quickly dip the saucepan in water to cool. Your caramel is ready!
- Reheat as necessary. When the caramel reach a golden-amber coloured, do not reheat again. Make a new batch.
Do a quick count of the number of puffs you have (the numbers change depending on the size of cream puffs made). If you start with a base of 6 cream puffs, you are looking at a tower made of around 25 cream puffs. The base layer and the 2nd layer should have equal numbers of puffs. From there on you use one less cream puff per layer. So think about how many people you are serving. You do not want to have left overs as the croquembouche does not store well. The larger it is, the harder it will be to construct. I recommend starting with the small 6 layer croquembouche made of 25 puffs as a first try. Feel free to go grander if you have enough cream puffs for the build.
Cream Puffs
Caramel
- Take a sheet of parchment paper and place on work surface. Dip the top of 6 cream puffs in caramel and place them in a circle on the paper. From there on you can build your layers of cream puffs cemented using caramel. Use 1 less cream puff than the previous layer so you end up with a cone shape. I wanted to show the top side of the cream puffs on the side of my tower so I did it another way. Dip the bottom of the 1st layer of cream puffs and place them in a circle on the paper. Dip all subsequent cream puffs (other than the one you cap the tower with) on the bottom and a little bit on the side. Dip the capping cream puff on the bottom only. The upside of doing it the first way is that it's easier to hold on to the cream puffs and you end up with less caramel per puff. The upside of doing it the 2nd way is that it's prettier looking. You can dip only the sides for less caramel to puff ratio while maintaining the prettiness of the tower.
- Decorate your tower with spun sugar, chocolate coated almonds, sugar flowers or anything else you like!
haha too cute.
ReplyDeleteSo it's you! I was wondering who was up so late reading.
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