Daring Bakers: Croquembouche.

Croquembouche. When I say the name I purse my lips together attempting my most french face. I want to have on big sunglasses and a scarf waving from my neck and beautiful Audrey Hepburn pants. I photoshop out the long cigarette. I don't know why I think of this image when I think of French women, but I do.

I've been loving and hating caramel since I first made it about a year ago. I love it because I love the sugary taste. I hate it because I'm always afraid it's not going to work– when l cook it too long it ends up like concrete. With the advice on the Daring Bakers forum, though, I realized a simple solution to concrete caramel. I just need to put it back on the heat for a few seconds to warm up the caramel and it becomes liquid again. Ok. Stop laughing. I know it seems intuitive. But when you think concrete is what you're going to end up with, that's usually what you end up with– until you learn differently.

What I love most about baking challenges is that they stretch my perceptions of what is difficult, like wearing glasses not only makes you look smarter but also makes you see things more clearly.

On to the dessert:
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.



The choux pastry is definitely one of the easiest parts of the challenge! As long as you have a strong stirring arm and some comfort with plastic decorator bags this is a fait de compli.

The pastry cream is perhaps my favourite part of this lovely dessert. One particular ingredient tingles my tastebuds, the Dulce De Leche. I made it myself. Super easy! Technique: one can of condensed milk poured into a pie pan, sprinkled with a little sea salt, and covered with aluminum foil. Place the pie pan in a larger pan (I used a roasting pan) and fill halfway to the middle of the pie pan with hot water. Place in the oven at 425. Cook for 1 1/2 hours, adding more water every 30 minutes. Let it cool and do whatever you can not to eat all of it before it's even cool! (Thank you to David Lebovitz' blog for this great recipe.)

As for the pastry cream recipe with Dulce De Leche, I followed it precisely, adding 1 cup (ok, a little less because I spread some on my morning toast!) of it to the cream before chiling it. 

The Caramel is probably the easiest part of the whole process, unless you're full of fear.

The following link helped me in making this dessert: http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/marthas-famous-croquembouche

If you'd like the recipe. Click on the link!


Pate a Choux (Yield: About 28)
¾ cup (175 ml.) water
6 Tbsp. (85 g.) unsalted butter
¼ Tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup (125 g.) all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
For Egg Wash: 1 egg and pinch of salt
Pre-heat oven to 425◦F/220◦C degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Preparing batter:
Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.
Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly.
Add 1 egg. The batter will appear loose and shiny.

As you stir, the batter will become dry-looking like lightly buttered mashed potatoes.

It is at this point that you will add in the next egg. Repeat until you have incorporated all the eggs.
Piping:
Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip (I piped directly from the bag opening without a tip). Pipe choux about 1 inch-part in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high about 1 inch wide.
Using a clean finger dipped in hot water, gently press down on any tips that have formed on the top of choux when piping. You want them to retain their ball shape, but be smoothly curved on top.

Brush tops with egg wash (1 egg lightly beaten with pinch of salt).
Baking:
Bake the choux at 425◦F/220◦C degrees until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes.
Lower the temperature to 350◦F/180◦C degrees and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

Vanilla Crème Patissiere
1 cup (225 ml.) whole milk
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
6 Tbsp. (100 g.) sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
2 Tbsp. (30 g.) unsalted butter
1 Tsp. Vanilla
Dissolve cornstarch in ¼ cup of milk. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan; bring to boil; remove from heat.
Beat the whole egg, then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.
Return the remaining milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking.
Continue whisking (this is important – you do not want the eggs to solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil. Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla.

Pour cream into a stainless steel/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface. Chill immediately and until ready to use.

Hard Caramel Glaze:
1 cup (225 g.) sugar
½ teaspoon lemon juice

Combine sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan with a metal kitchen spoon stirring until the sugar resembles wet sand. Place on medium heat; heat without stirring until sugar starts to melt around the sides of the pan and the center begins to smoke. Begin to stir sugar. Continue heating, stirring occasionally until the sugar is a clear, amber color. Remove from heat immediately; place bottom of pan in ice water to stop the cooking. Use immediately.
Assembly of your Piece Montée:
You may want to lay out your unfilled, unglazed choux in a practice design to get a feel for how to assemble the final dessert. For example, if making a conical shape, trace a circle (no bigger than 8 inches) on a piece of parchment to use as a pattern. Then take some of the larger choux and assemble them in the circle for the bottom layer. Practice seeing which pieces fit together best.
Once you are ready to assemble your piece montée, dip the top of each choux in your glaze (careful it may be still hot!), and start assembling on your cake board/plate/sheet. Continue dipping and adding choux in levels using the glaze to hold them together as you build up.