Croquembouche

Croquembouche

You're probably asking yourself, what the heck is a croquembouche? It is basically a cream puff sculpture that is glued together with caramel. Traditionally, it is assembled into a tall cone, but mine was assembled into a pyramid to fit the carrying case. See the original recipe here: http://www.marthastewart.com/339829/croquembouche.

I broke up the creation of the croquembouche into three parts: Making the profiteroles (pastry puffs), making the pastry cream; and filling the profiteroles, making the caramel, and assembling the cream puffs.

Please refer to the original recipe and the Gougères blog post for how to make the profiteroles. The technique is very similar to making gourgeres. After I made the profiteroles, I froze them for a month before I actually used them. Breaking recipes into workable chunks really helps make complicated recipes less stressful.

Chocolate Pastry Cream

1. Start by measuring out your ingredients which includes:

• 6 large egg yolks. I had 4 egg yolks leftover from when I made S'mores Baked Alaska, which only needed 4 egg whites. I whisked the egg yolks with a teaspoon of sugar, then frozen them in a ziplock bag, which I defrosted when making the pastry cream. The baked Alaska was amazing. It had homemade chocolate cake, homemade graham cracker ice cream, and toasted meringue.

 

• 1/2 cup sugar(minus the teaspoon that was used for freezing the egg yolks)
• 1/2 cup sifted all-purpose flour
• 2 cups milk
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 2 teaspoons instant espresso powder, mixed with 2 teaspoons hot water

2.  In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks and slowly added the sugar. Beat on medium high until the egg yolks turns pale. It should almost resemble mayonnaise with a light yellow tinge. 

3. Scrape the edges of the bowl and beat in the flour. Make sure you scrape the edges of the bowl again.

This will really thicken up the mixture.

4. Scald your milk, which means bring it up to a boil. Be very careful, because the second the milk starts to scald, it will foam up.

5. With the mixer on low, pour in the milk (except for half a cup to save for later) a little at a time. If you put too much milk in at once, the egg will scramble. Keep pouring until all the milk is in. The mixture should be pretty runny. Don't worry, this is right.

6. Put the egg mixture into a clean pot and heat it on high. Whisk vigorously. Once the mixture thickens, turn off the heat. If the mixture seems too thick to use a piping bag, add the leftover milk.

7. Add in the butter one tablespoon at a time. Make sure you fully whisk in each butter addition, before you add more.

8. Dissolve the instant espresso into the hot water.

9. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate together with the espresso.

10. Whisk the chocolate into the pastry cream.

11. Let the pastry cream cool. If you want to leave it in the fridge, make sure you line the pastry cream with plastic wrap to prevent a thin film from forming.

 Caramel and Assembly

I didn't get a good picture of me filling the puffs, but I used a pastry bag fitting with a 1/4" round tip. This did not go as well as I thought. The puffs were brittle and tended to break. This could of been because I didn't let them come to room temperature when I took them out of the fridge or because I made them too small.

Making the caramel is really easy.

1. Combine:

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 tablespoons corn syrup
• 2/3 cup of water

in a heavy bottom saucepan. I halved the recipe because I didn't anticipate needing that much. It was a good call.

2. Turn the heat on high and once it reaches a boil, cover. When you make caramel, sugar crystals often form. When you cover the pan, the steam that forms comes down the side and help dissolve the crystals. Let it steam for a little bit then uncover.

3. Cook until the caramel turns amber. Don't take your eyes off the caramel. Burning caramel is easy.

4. Assemble! Sorry I don't have any good pictures, but simply dip each puff into the caramel, then attach it to the rest of the puffs. Once the puffs are all assembled, dip a fork into the caramel then lift the fork high above the puffs to create those characteristic caramel webs. You may need to reheat the caramel if it cools down too much.

Enjoy! This is a great snow day recipe!