Croquembouche

Jun 15

I love Croquembouche.. I made one in Culinary School. They are so beautiful. They are the Traditional French Wedding Cake. It is made with Choux Pastry Profiteroles filled with custard. They are placed in a tower coned shape and ‘glued’ together with Carmel spun sugar. The sugar is what gives the dessert its name. Croquemouche loosely means “crunch in the mouth”. The dessert can be decorated with anything from Flowers, to Macarons..

Croquembouche was invented by Chef Marie-Antoine Carême in the late 1700’s. He is know as the first ‘celebrity chef’. He is best known for his sugar, marzipan, and pastry sculptures called pieces Montees.

Carême was born in Rue de Bac, Paris on June 8, 1784 to a large, poor family of 15-25 children. By the age of 10 he was out on his own, and Carême signed on for a six-year internship at a small tavern on the edge of Paris called the Fricassée de Lapin; he started as a dishwasher and gopher, or runner. In those days, taverns were hubs for city life and often operated as inns for travelers passing through town. In 1815 he went to London to work for George, Prince of Wales. While in England he wrote his first book La Patissier royal. Carême felt that chefs should wear uniforms. He donned a double-breasted jacket as a uniform, and popularized a version of the chef's toque. It was in his series of manuals that Carême created the concept of the four mother sauces, recipes that represent a distillation of the elemental building blocks of French cuisine. Though he is credited with establishing these sauces, he was not known for them in his day. It would take another century and another chef — Escoffier — before the systemization of French haute cuisine would be complete, and before Carême's work on the savory side of the kitchen would be appreciated by future generations. He died at the young age of 49 and the last kitchen he worked in was for Baron James de Rothschild.

Course Dessert

Cuisine French

Prep Time 3hours hours

Cook Time 1hour hour

Resting Time 1hour hour

Total Time 5hours hours

Servings 64 cream puffs

Calories 142kcal

Author Elizabeth Marek : https://sugargeekshow.com/recipe/croquembouche/

Equipment

1 Stand mixer with the paddle attachment optional
1 Candy thermomer for the caramel
3 Pastry bags
1 Croquembouche mold We are using an 18" tall, 10" wide croquebouche mold from Matfer, but you can use any kind of mold.

Ingredients

Pâte à Choux

320 grams whole milk
320 grams water
12 grams salt
12 grams granulated sugar
280 grams unsalted butter European butter like Plugra works best
360 grams all purpose flour
200 grams large eggs

Pastry Cream

300 grams whole milk
2 whole vanilla beans seeded
100 grams egg yolks
80 grams granulated sugar
40 grams cornstarch

Caramel

300 grams water
100 grams glucose melted
1000 grams granulated sugar

Instructions

Making Pâte à Choux

Note: This pâte à choux recipe is enough to make about 64 cream puffs. We did about 4 batches to make about 250 in total for an 18" high croquembouche.
We made them in batches so as to not overwhelm our mixer. You will need to make multiple batches depending on what size croquembouche you’re making, the size of your cream puffs, and how much filling you use.
Add your milk, water, salt, sugar, and butter to a medium saucepan and bring it to a boil. The butter should be melted at the same time the milk starts to boil, so remove the pot from the heat to let the butter melt if needed.
Once your milk mixture is boiling and the butter has completely melted, take your pot off the heat, add in your sifted flour, and mix together until it looks like mashed potatoes. It is best to use a wooden spoon, but a spatula is fine too.
Turn the heat back on to medium-high and continue to stir and keep it moving to dry out the dough.
Once you see a browning layer on the bottom of the pan the dough is dry enough. This is important, as it will help your cream puffs “puff” and ensure that they have a hollow center for the cream filling.
Put the dough into the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and begin to mix on medium speed to cool it down, this should take about 30 seconds to 1 minute. When you can place your hand on the side of the bowl without it feeling too hot, it’s done.
Slowly add in your eggs one at a time while mixing on low. Mix until the dough slowly falls in a v-shape off of your paddle.
Prepare a pastry bag with a small metal round piping tip. Fill the piping bag with the pate a choux batter.
Prepare a baking sheet pan with parchment paper. Chef Christophe is using a “silpain” baking mat on a cookie sheet for maximum airflow and evenly-baked cream puffs.
Pipe the pâte à choux rounds slightly smaller than your desired final size (about 1-inch), as they will “puff” and expand in the oven.
Gently smooth the pointy top of the cream puff with a damp fingertip.
Bake the cream puffs at 350°F for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Do not open the oven door or your cream puffs could collapse.
Cool the cream puffs completely to room temperature on a wire rack, for about 30 minutes.

Making Pastry Cream

Scrape out the vanilla pods by using a small knife to cut down the center of the bean, then use the back of the knife to gently scrape the pods out. (Only use the pods on the inside, do not use the skin of the bean.)
Add your milk, scraped vanilla bean, and half of the sugar into a large saucepan over medium heat and bring it to a boil.
Add your egg yolks, cornstarch, and the other half of the sugar into a large mixing bowl and whisk them together.
Pour some of the hot milk into the egg mixture to temper it. Pro-Tip: Tempering your yolks helps them reach the same temperature as your milk mixture. This makes it so all the ingredients mix together properly and don’t curdle.
Then put everything back together into the pot and boil for about 1 minute until the mixture starts to thicken. Whisk constantly to prevent lumps.
Pour your pastry cream into a bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate until you are ready to use it. Pro-tip: To cool pastry cream down quickly, lay down some plastic wrap on a sheet pan, spread the pastry cream out into a thin rectangular shape, and wrap it fully before chilling.

Filling the Cream Puffs

Poke a small hole into the center of each pate a choux using a small round metal piping tip.
Fill your piping bag with the pastry cream. Pro Tip: Use a metal filling tip to easily fill your pate a choux.
Fill each cream puff with pastry cream and scrape the bottom over the edge of a small container so that it is clean.
Set the cream puffs aside while you make your caramel.

Making the Caramel

Microwave the glucose for about 30 seconds to make it liquid.
Add the water, glucose, and sugar to a small pot, then attach a candy thermometer and bring it to a boil over medium-high heat.
Stir the mixture once when it comes to a boil, and then do not stir it again to avoid crystallization.
Cook the mixture until it reaches a medium brown caramel color, or about 345°F (174°C). Pro Tip: the darker the color of your caramel is, the more bitter it will taste. Based on your preference you can stop cooking the caramel once you have reached your desired color.
Place the pot of caramel into a bowl of ice water to cool down faster.

How to Stack a Croquembouche

First, prepare your workstation with the filled cream puffs, finished caramel, the metal cone, gloves, and silicone sphere molds or a prepared baking sheet to let the caramel set. We are dipping about half of the cream puffs in rock sugar to make a decorative pattern, but that is optional. You want to work quickly with the caramel so you don’t have to keep reheating it.
Carefully dip the top of each cream puff in hot caramel and place it upside down into a silicone sphere mold while the caramel sets. You can also place them on a sheet pan instead of a sphere mold, but your caramel may not be as evenly distributed.
Dip about half of the cream puffs in caramel and then rock sugar, and leave the other half with just plain caramel.
When the caramel gets thicker, place it back on the stove over low heat to make it warm again.
Continue dipping all of the cream puff tops in caramel and let the caramel cool.
For the first layer of the croquembouche, dip one side of each cream puff in the caramel sauce and immediately place it onto the cone, starting at the bottom. Stick the sides of the cream puffs to each other and wrap them around the cone.
For the next layer, dip the side and bottom of the puff in caramel and glue it to the cream puff side and the cream puff below.
Continue this process up the top of the croquembouche.
Decorate with fresh orchids, spun sugar, or candles!

Notes

Baking Tips:

Purchase a kitchen scale if you don’t already have one to make the best recipes. One cup of flour can vary from scoop to scoop depending on how packed the flour is, its humidity, and the type of flour, which can ruin your recipe.
Practice Mise en Place (everything in its place) which means you measure everything before you start mixing so you don’t accidentally forget something or add any ingredients out of order.

Serving a Croquembouche:

Prep your filling and pate a choux dough ahead of time, then assemble your croquembouche the day you’re going to serve it.
Serve a croquembouche by cutting the cream puffs out with a knife, or using two forks to pry out each cream puff.
Make sure to start at the top when serving!
Leave the croquembouche on the cone while traveling.
Don’t leave a croquembouche sitting out for longer than 5 hours.

Croquembouche Assembly Tips:

This 18” tall croquembouche with about 250 cream puffs took about 5 hours in total to make. We had two people helping fill, dip, and assemble the cream puffs.
We are using a croquembouche mold from Matfer, but you can use any kind of mold.
It is possible to make this croquembouche all in one day, but you can also make the pate a choux and pastry cream ahead of time.

Pate a Choux Tips:

Use a heavy bottom pot when making the choux dough so that the dough can stick to the bottom. A nonstick pan will be hard to determine when your dough is dried out properly.
Avoid refrigerating the filled cream puffs overnight, or they will get soggy.
To make the choux ahead you have two options:
- One: Place the choux dough in multiple pastry bags and chill them overnight, then pipe, bake, fill, and assemble on the same day.
- Two: Bake the cream puff shells the day before, store them in an airtight container at room temperature overnight, then crisp them up in a 350°F oven for 5 minutes the next day before filling, and assembling.

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Nutrition

Michele Cababe