Croquembouche

Croquembouche
You will need:
Approx 100 cream puffs (double recipe pate choux)
1 recipe caramel
Approx 4 1/2 cups creme patissiere (double recipe)
15″x 5″ Foam cone from a craft store like Joann’s
Parchment paper
Flat head pins
Serving tray or 12″ cake board
A truncated whisk or fork (you can make your own truncated
whisk by taking an old metal whisk and clipping off the ends
before they curve)
1. Prepare your foam cone.
I have tried building the tower
inside of a cone, building it on the outside of a foam cone
and building it without any mold at all and have decided that
building it on the outside of a foam cone works best for me.
You need to wrap it with parchment paper. I have tried white
glue, hot glue, masking tape, electrical tape and double-sided
adhesive and none of these work to adhere parchment paper to
foam.
So I use small flat-head sewing pins to completely
cover the foam cone. If you are uncomfortable with the pins
touching the cream puffs then you can paint them with edible
glue. This did not worry me as I only needed three pins to
hold the whole thing together. You can attach the cone to a
cake board with white glue or later use some caramel to adhere
it to your serving platter.
2.
Make your cream puffs according to your favorite recipe.
You can make them a day ahead of time and store them in an
airtight container. On the day of assembly pop them in a 300F
oven for about 5-8 minutes to re-crisp them.
3. You can also make your creme patisserie 1-2 days ahead of
time and store it in the refrigerator.
4. On the day of assembly:
a. Once you have re-crisped your cream puffs and let them cool
again fill them all with the creme
patissiere.
b. While you are filling your cream puffs start your caramel.
Bring your sugar, water and corn syrup to a gentle boil over
medium heat and continue to simmer until it reaches a medium
amber color (darker than honey but not as dark as molasses).
This will take about 10-15 minutes. Once it has reached the
correct color take it off the heat and let it sit for about
1-2 minutes until it is as thick as maple syrup.
c. At this point your parchment -covered foam cone should be
ready to go on your serving platter or cake board. Cover your
counter with more parchment paper to make clean up easier
later.
d.
Working quickly (but carefully so as not to burn your
fingers) take one filled cream puff at a time and briskly dip
the bottom into the caramel and start attaching around the
base of the cone. The caramel will harden quickly and secure
your cream puffs so you don’t have to worry about them falling
off. If your caramel gets hard heat it up again for a few
minutes. I was able to attach all of them without reheating
the caramel so it should not be a problem. Keep building on
top of each other until the top– making sure to position them
with the bottoms of the cream puffs parallel to the serving
platter whenever possible (as opposed to lying against the
cone). If you’ve dipped the bottoms of the cream puffs they
should attach both to the cream puffs beneath them and to the
parchment cone easily as well as drip a little over the sides
which is delicious.
e. By the time you are done attaching all the cream puffs the
caramel should have cooled to the right temperature to create
your spun sugar encasement. Test it by taking your truncated
whisk and dipping it in the caramel then give it a few twirls
over your parchment-lined counter. It should create golden
threads. Dip your whisk several time and twirl it around your
cream puff tower. Go slowly to stretch the strands around the
tower. Keep doing this to your heart’s content or until your
caramel becomes too thick. I found out the sad way that these
threads are so fine they won’t hold up under a warm, humid
environment ( they will dissolve) so prep your house for your
special occasion by cooling it down prior to spinning your
sugar. It is ideal to prepare your croquembouche no earlier
than a couple of hours prior to presentation. You can also
attach other decorations such as small bows or pearlized sugar
for extra color.
f. Eat! Just break the caramel bonds by jiggling the cream
puff a little or use a fork to pry them off.