CROQUEMBOUCHE

The Pièce de résistance of BIRTHDAY month is Croquembouche!!!  Soft cream puffs, filled with delicious and smooth rum pastry cream and put together with light golden caramel.  Happy Birthday to me!!

This tower of deliciousness originally comes from a French Chef named Antonin Careme.  You can see it displayed at weddings, baptisms, christening and other important celebrations.  I come across this dessert at Martha Stewart’s website and I am just in awe of it.  In awe of the beauty and a little bit intimidated of what goes into making one.  But I’m always up for a challenge.  So I tried many different cream puffs recipe, tried different pastry creams, and tried making caramel.  After all the baking experiments and lots of youtube videos, by George, I think I finally got it!!

Making Croquembouche is time-consuming, takes a lot of patience, and to be honest with you, you might get burns on your finger.  But this dessert is so delicious and so pretty that all the hard work that you put into it will subside once you bite into the cream puffs!

There are 3 things that you have to make.  The cream puffs, the pastry cream and the caramel.  The cream puffs and the pastry cream can be made a day ahead.  However, the caramel has to be made at the day of the party.  It really does not take long to make the caramel and the assembly but I think it would be better to make the cream puffs one day ahead.

In a large saucepan, bring the water, butter, salt, and sugar to a boil.  Add all the flour at once (dump it in) and stir with a wooden spoon until all the flour is incorporated, 30 to 60 seconds.

Take it off the stove and keep stirring.  This is what it will look like.  You can also press the dough against the side of the saucepan so all the flour are incorporated.

After all the flour is mixed in, put it in the stand mixer bowl.  Let cool for a while before adding the eggs.

While the mixer is on low-speed, add the eggs one at a time and mix it well.  It will start to get smooth and sticky.

Here is what the consistency should look like.  Prepare your piping bag with the round #1a piping tip.  Spoon the dough into your piping tip and make mounds the size of 2 inch diameter.

To prepare the pans for making cream puffs, you need to do something different from just putting a parchment paper on top of a baking sheet.  To avoid having a burnt bottom on the cream puffs, put one baking sheet on top of another baking sheet.  Then you put the parchment paper on top.  The cream puffs will have a nice light bottom because the heat won’t be too strong.

Also, to create a steam effect so the cream puffs will be light and airy, sprinkle lightly some water on the parchment paper.  Just very lightly and not too wet.

After piping the dough onto the parchment paper, you want to dip your finger in water and push the top so it will not burn.

Bake for 25 minutes and then flip the baking pan, then bake again for another 5 minutes.  Pierce each puffs with a toothpick so it will let the steam out.

To make the pastry cream, heat up milk in a saucepan until it comes to a rolling boil.   In a stand mixer,  mix together egg, sugar and cornstarch.

Gently add the warmed milk into the egg mixture.  Keep adding until all the milk are mixed together with the egg.

Put the mixture back into the saucepan and keep stirring until it thickens up.  Add butter and rum and stir again.

Transfer the pastry cream into a glass container and let cool for about 5 minutes.  Then put a plastic wrap right on top of the cream so it won’t form a skin.  Once it’s set in about 2 hours, you can pipe it into the cream puffs.

We are almost to the finish line!  To make the caramel, put sugar and water into a saucepan.  I like using a stainless steel sauce pan so you can really see the color of the sugar as it changes.  Using a non stick would be hard to see it it changes color yet because it is dark.  Once you put it in the pan, do not do anything else.  Do not stir, do not put a spoon in it, do not swirl, just let it do its own thing.

It’s best to stay close to the stove, because once it changes, it can burn really fast.  You want to take it off the stove once it becomes golden caramel.

Now it’s time for the assembly!!    To put it together, prepare the cone, the puffs, and the caramel.

Gently dip the sides of the cream puffs and put it on the cake stand. Be very careful because the caramel is very hard.  If you get burn (I get a few but it’s worth it!!), Alocane is great cream for burns.

Keep going and keep adding the puffs to the cone.  At the end, you can drizzle more of the caramel on top.  Yummyyyyyyy!!!!

No one ever said that Croquembouche is easy to make but all your hard work and patience will pay off once you have this beautiful dessert for your celebration.   Cheers!!

Happy Baking!!!