The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.
If you are unfamiliar with the croquembouche, it’s basically a tower of cream puffs held together by some kind of glaze. It’s a French dessert often served at weddings and other celebrations.
I was excited for this challenge because I’ve never made cream puffs before. It seems like a good skill to have if you consider yourself a baker.
Things started out great because I made the vanilla crème patissiere first, which I’ve made before, and it turned out perfect. It only took me about 15 minutes. So once that was in the fridge chilling, I started on the pâte à choux, which is the dough for the profiteroles, or cream puffs. Interesting history on the pâte à choux: it’s the only dough that is cooked before it’s baked (you have to make it in a pot over heat), and it has no leavening– it uses the steam created inside the dough to rise.
So, I whipped up the dough, following the directions exactly. Then, to form the cream puffs, you have to pipe them onto a baking sheet. Well, my dough was really runny. I thought maybe some kind of magic would happen when I put it in the pastry bag, but when I piped it, it basically just oozed all over the place. It looked more like a pancake than a cream puff. So I consulted the other Daring Bakers and realized that the 4 eggs the recipe called for was probably too much. Dang! I couldn’t remove an egg at this point, and I am not a big fan of trashing an entire batch of food and starting over. Hence, I decided to add a few tablespoons of flour to the batter to thicken it up. French pastry chefs the world over were cringing and rolling over in their graves, I’m sure, but guess what? It worked! They turned out perfectly, or at least, they seemed perfect to someone who’s never made cream puffs before.
So, that done, it was time to pipe the cream into the puffs. It turns out that was easier than I expected, too.
Once they are all filled, you can assemble the piece. I made a hard caramel for mine; you dip each puff in it and use it as glue. And this is where the obligatory injury happened. Can I give you a bit of advice? Do NOT put your thumb in a pot of hot (hot HOT!) caramel. I’m jut saying. You might get a burn that throbs (and throbs and THROBS!) for like, hours. Or maybe days. Check back with me on Monday.
And then I started constructing. I think I had an edge because I’ve built so many Lego structures over the past 18 months.
Ta da!
There is no internal structure here, friends. That’s all cream puffs, all the time. And here’s the best part: they tasted awesome! In spite of the pâte à choux debacle, they totally tasted like cream puffs. And I thought it looked pretty good too. The inside was divine:
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Very nicely done! Love it!
Looks really delicious.
That is amazing! Oh I wish I could taste one. Major skillz!
I love the assembly of your croquembouche (must be your mad Lego skillz). There’s something really visually appealing about it. I think because it looks sort of natural yet elegant. That sounds weird, doesn’t it?
“All cream puffs, all the time.” Sounds alright by me. Oh, that creme patissiere was divine.
Nice job! I hope your burn heals soon. I consider it miraculous that I escaped burn-free.