christmas croquembouche!!

this year i decided to make a croquembouche for christmas instead of doing a christmas cake which nobody ever eats. i didnt have a croquembouche stand (despite looking through heaps of shops for one) so after a failed attempt to make one from cardboard (which wasnt strong enough or wide enough, my croquembouche ended up being more like a profiterole stack, and it was too humid for my toffee which turned more to sugar as it hardened, but still tasted delicious!

christmas croquembouche



ingredients

choux puffs

3 cups water
225g butter
3 cups plain flour
12 eggs
4 tbsp cocoa
2 tbps boiling water

filling

900ml whipping cream
220g dark chocolate
1/3 cup icing sugar
custard (i cheated and used prebought custard because i was running out of time)

caramel

2 cups water
4 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp butter

choux puffs (can be made up to a month before and frozen, or kept in an airtight container for a week)

preheat oven to 200C
in a saucepan melt 75g butter

add 1 cup water

bring to boil, stirring until butter melts

add 1 cup of flour

stir until mixture forms a smooth ball

place dough in mixing bowl

lightly beat 4 eggs

when dough has cooled slightly, mix in the eggs a little at a time

spoon onto oven tray and bake for 10 minutes

turn the heat down to 175C and cook for a further 15-20 minutes until choux puffs are golden and crisp

repeat process - making different sized puffs means that you can fill in holes with smaller ones and use bigger ones for building blocks so don't try to make them all the same size

for the last third of the mixture to make chocolate choux puffs, mix together cocoa and boiling water

mix to make a paste

add to pastry mix after you have mixed through the eggs

spoon onto baking trays

and bake as per other choux puffs


filling (forgive me i forgot to take photos of this as it was rather messy)

roughly chop chocolate and melt with a splash of cream in a saucepan over a bath of boiling water, stirring chocolate until smooth
mix the icing sugar with the chocolate and allow to cool
in a separate bowl, whip cream
when the chocolate has cooled a bit, fold through cream and put in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight

as close to assembly time as possible, use a pastry bag to fill plain choux puffs with chocolate cream, and chocolate choux puffs with custard

caramel/toffee

place sugar, vanilla, and water in frying pan and stir over heat without boiling until sugar is dissolved
bring to boil and boil rapidly without stirring until mixture turns golden
stir through butter

assembling the croquembouche

dip the choux puffs in toffee and build stack starting from the bottom, using the biggest puffs on the bottom
when you have assembled the stack, drizzle toffee over the top

sprinkle with icing sugar and admire/enjoy!!