Croquembouche

CROQUEMBOUCHE………. is the tower in f cream puffs held together with caramel. In France 🇫🇷 it is the traditional cake for wedding, baptism or communion.

This is my first try to make this tower of puffs, it’s big challenge for me although it’s bit messy but there no harm to try right?…… at this recipe you need a lot of sugar to build the tower, for the base I used nougatine, combination of caramel and almond, for the filling I used vanilla custard, and the star for this recipe is the puff pastry or pasty’s choux. So here we go….💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

INGREDIENTS:

For the Nougatine;

1 1/2 cup cube sugar
1/3 cup corn syrup
1 cup almond
Pinch of sea salt
1/4 cup water

To make the nougatine: heat up the almond in a 250F oven for 29 minutes. For the wet caramel, add corn syrup, water and sugar in a medium saucepan cook for 5 minutes on high heat with lid on, then remove the lid and continue cook the sugar to light amber then turn off the heat and stir in the almond, butter and salt mix well to combine. Transfer the nougatine to the silicon baking sheet workout while stillness hot, then roll the nougatine as thin as possible and mold to the 6 ” inch baking pan and shape, cut the excess then let it cool in room temperature. Then remove from the mold. And set aside.

For the Pastry Choux:

125 g water

125 g milk

125 g unsalted butter

1 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

150 g all purpose flour

250 g eggs

Powdered sugar for dusting

To make the pastry’s choux; in a saucepan combine milk, water, sugar, salt and butter, bring to boil, when boiling remove from the fire and stir in the flour mixture mix well and back to the fire continue stirring until the mixture pulls away then transfer to the mixing bowl and whisk for 2 minutes then add the egg one at a time mix until soft peaks. Transfer the mixture to the piping bag add pipe to the prepared baking sheet, dust with the powder sugar and bake 5 minutes for 230 C and lower temperature to 180 C and continue baking for 30 minutes or until become golden brown

Turn off the oven and let the pastry puff dry out and cooled.

For the Vanilla Custard Filling;

1 cup milk
1 stick vanilla bean
3 large egg yolks
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp corn starch
1 tbsp flour
3 tbsp butter

To make the vanilla custard; simmer the milk, half of the sugar on medium heat, scrape the vanilla bean and add to the milk, meanwhile whisk the egg yolks and remaining sugar and cornstarch, flour, then pour the half of the hot milk mixture whisk to combine, them mix all together on fire constantly stirring until cook for 2 minutes, remove from the heat and sift the custard mixture and cover with plastic wrap to avoid forming of skin and chilled. After chilled beat the custard until become fluffy and creamy transfer to the piping bag and pipe to the pastry choux generously remove the excess.

Make another batch of caramel. Cook 1 cup off sugar with 1/4 cup of water until light amber, dip the pastry choux and let it cool and dry.

After all done start to assemble the Croquembouche, assemble it carefully the pastry choux using caramel to glue to each other. Make it tight for the good foundation dnt leave space to each other.