Crunch in the mouth, a croquembouche,  lengthy project but truly worth it.

I have done choux pastry before, but never have they looked as impressive as this.  This was my first croquembouche and it won’t be the last, that you can be sure of. It’s as diverse as other cakes as you can amend the size, use different fillings and play with the decorations.

Here’s how I made the DIY cone.

Croquembouche

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Choux pastry puffs filled with vanilla pastry cream piled into a tower and bound with threads of caramelized sugar.

Servings	Prep Time
1croquembouche	3hours

Cook Time

2hours

Servings Prep Time 1croquembouche 3hours

Cook Time 2hours

Croquembouche 1 2 3 4 5 Votes: 0 Rating: 0 You: Rate this recipe! Choux pastry puffs filled with vanilla pastry cream piled into a tower and bound with threads of caramelized sugar. Servings Prep Time 1croquembouche 3hours Cook Time 2hours Servings Prep Time 1croquembouche 3hours Cook Time 2hours

Ingredients

• Choux Pastry Puffs
• 200 grams butter
• 400 mililiters water
• 200 grams plain flour
• 7 eggs
• Vanilla Pastry Cream
• 200 mililiters milk
• 100 mililiters heavy cream
• 1 vanilla pod seeds
• 7 egg yolks
• 80 grams granulated sugar
• 5 tablespoons cornstarch
• Caramelized sugar
• 500 grams granulated sugar
• 150 mililiters water

Servings: croquembouche

Units:MetricUS Imperial

Instructions

Choux Pastry Puffs

1. Preheat oven to 175°C. Prepare three baking sheets with baking paper.
2. Place water and butter in a saucepan over medium heat, cook for few minutes until the mixture starts to boil.
3. Add flour and stir until incorporated, continue stirring over low heat for 2 minutes.
4. Transfer to mixing bowl and add eggs, one at time, beating on high speed.
5. Place into a piping bag with round 1,5 cm diameter tip and pipe profiteroles on the baking sheet.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes, then remove from oven and using a knife make small hole on bottom of each to release steam.
7. Return to oven and bake for another 10 minutes, then place on wire rack to cool.

Vanilla Pastry Cream

1. Combine milk, cream and seeds of vanilla pod in a saucepan and heat over medium heat.
2. While the cream mixture is heating up, place yolks and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat on medium high speed, for few minutes, until pale.
3. Remove from mixer and stir in sifted cornstarch.
4. Add 1/3 of hot cream mixture and whisk well, then combine the mixtures and cook over medium heat constantly stirring, until it starts to boil.
5. Remove from heat, strain into a bowl, then cover with clingfilm and refrigerate until fully chilled.

Caramelized sugar

1. Dissolve sugar in saucepan with water, occasionally stirring allowing the water slowly soak in, stop stirring when begins to boil.
2. Boil to make golden brown caramel, remove from heat when reaches 154°C.

Filling & Finish

1. Place pastry cream in a piping bag with a filling tip or plain piping tip.
2. Pipe filling from the bottom of pastry puffs.
3. Dip the sides in caramel and stick to tower with tops facing out.
4. Drizzle caramel all over the tower and add some spun sugar and additional decoration bits, then let the caramel set for 30 minutes before serving.

Recipe Notes

I used filling that generously in some puffs that I ran out of pastry cream after filling 2/3 and used about 100 grams of nutella to fill the rest. Also used nutella in filling of the little macaron decorations painted in golden edible paint.