I have always wanted to make one of these. I just never seemed to have the time or the reason to make one.
Now that I have made my first, I think I will be making them more often.
I have made cream puffs before, so that portion was not a huge deal for me. It is a skill though. You have to get the pâte à choux right, if it isn’t the right consistency, the choux won’t puff correctly.
Piping the choux is also something you have to do just right to get the perfect round shape. I used a large single hole tip on my pastry bag, but really you could just put the choux in the bag with no tip and get the same result.
You need to be careful that all the puffs are the same size too. This makes sure they cook evenly and it makes it easier to put together the cone.
The filling is quite simple. It is basically whipped cream, with the addition of confectioners’ sugar. The confectioners’ sugar ensures that the cream will not fall apart and break down. So you have a nice, stiff cream for the entire time the croquembouche is on display.
The trickiest part is the sugar. Do NOT use a cast iron pan to caramelize your sugar. I used my heavy duty Le Crueset pan, thinking it would help the sugar stay warm longer. It did do that. The problem was that it also did not cool down fast enough, meaning the sugar continued to cook even after I removed it from the heat.
This caused the sugar to burn. And burnt sugar smokes a lot. So the fire alarm went off - it was a bit of chaos. I ended up taking the pan outside and starting over.
I also cheated a little and used a preformed cone for the center of the tree. I will have to try again without the cone. But I figured after the sugar burning incident, I needed a break.
Forming the cone is probably the most difficult part of assembling this dish. And since I had to do the sugar twice, I was running out of time before my event. And this is not really something you can make in advance.
You really have to make and assemble within maybe two hours of serving this. The cream filling can’t really stay at room temperature for more than three or four hours, and you want the croquembouche to look fresh.
I do think that the pâte à choux recipe should be doubled. I did not have quite enough puffs and had to place them a little further apart than I would have liked. Again, I was running out of time or I would have just made some more.
The good news is that the tree was immensely popular. There were no cream puffs left at the end of the evening.
CROQUEMBOUCHE
2 Cups Sugar
CREAM PUFF SHELLS
1 Cup Flour
1/8 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Cup Milk
1/3 Cup Butter
4 or 5 Eggs
FLAVORED CREAM
1 Cup Whipping Cream
1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla
3 Tablespoons Sifted Confectioners’ Sugar
Make Cream Puff Shells. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Sift flour, salt and sugar together. Melt butter in a heavy saucepan. Stir in milk and bring to a boil. Add the flour mixture in one fell swoop and stir quickly with a wooden spoon. When the mixture becomes smooth, stir fasters. The paste with dry and will no longer stick to the sides of the pan or the spoon. Remove from heat. Cool 2 minutes. Add room temperature eggs one at a time, beating vigorously. Continue to add eggs and beat until the dough no longer looks slippery. The proper consistency has been reached when a small quantity of the dough will stand erect is scooped up on the end of a spoon. Place the dough in a pastry bag pressing to remove any air bubbles. Form into puffs on a greased baking sheet by allowing the paste to bubble up around the time until the desired size is reached. Sprinkle a few drops of water over the shapes on the pan. Bake for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake 25 minutes longer. Cool. For filling - Whip cream until stiff. Fold in vanilla and confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Place in a piping bag with a long tip. Insert tip into cooled cream puff shells. Fill being careful not to add too much so the shells do not burst. To Assemble - Caramelize 2 cups sugar. Form a base of a 9 inch greased pie pan with caramelized sugar. Keep remaining caramelized sugar soft in a 250 degree oven. When the thin layer has hardened, place is on the serving platter. Work quickly so the caramelized syrup does not harden. Dip a portion of each filled puff in the sugar and place in circular layers of decreasing width on the caramel disk. Arrange the puffs on the outer layers so that their tops form the exposed surface. Let additional syrup drip partially over the whole as a final glaze. The entire dessert should look like a coned tree. Caramelized sugar can also be spun into fine threads to form around the tree as a decoration.
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