From Japanese shu kuri-mu to Dutch moorkop, some version of the cream puff pops up in nearly every cuisine. But leave it to the French to turn this simple, beloved confection into something grand, something magnificent: A croquembouche. Literally meaning "crunch in the mouth," this pastry monument is traditional for weddings, a tower of individual cream puffs held together with glassy, crackly caramel.
Last summer during my stint on TV, the challenge in the third episode of Food Network Star was dessert, and I tried to wow the judges by making a croquembouche. Or, at least, by trying to make a croquembouche. I lost the challenge. (What can I say? A pâtissier I am not.)
Never one to let failures lie, I asked Dominique Ansel—who recently left his post as executive pastry chef at Daniel Boulud's three-Michelin star restaurant, Daniel, to open an amazing bakery in Soho—to show me how it should be done. Chef Dominique, who's been practicing the art of pastry since he was 16 (and plucking puffs from croquembouche at family weddings since he was a toddler) graciously hosted me in the Daniel kitchen where we spent an afternoon building the most beautiful croquembouche I've ever seen.
Chocolate Croquembouche
By Dominique Ansel
Makes 60-70 cream puffs*
Pâte à Choux
1 cup milk
1 cup water
16 Tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2 ½ cups flour
8 eggs
Chocolate Pastry Cream
2 cups milk
½ of a vanilla bean, split lengthwise
6 egg yolks
2/3 cup, plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
¼ cup cornstarch
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
3½ ounces melted dark chocolate
Caramel
3 cups sugar
1½ cups water
¼ cup glucose syrup (available online at www.lepicerie.com.)
Garnish (optional)
White sugar grains
For the Pâte à Choux: Preheat a convection oven to 380° Fahrenheit.
In a large saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter and salt and sugar to a boil over medium-heat. When it boils, immediately take the pan off the heat. Stirring with a wooden spoon, add all the flour at once and stir vigorously until all the flour is incorporated; 30 to 60 seconds. The batter will look lumpy and pasty; keep stirring and it will start to pull away from the sides of the pan and get smoother. Return the pan to the heat and cook while stirring constantly to evaporate the moisture and cook the flour; cook for about 2 minutes.
Scrape the mixture into a large mixing bowl, and beat it with a spoon for a few minutes to help cool the dough. When the dough is slightly warm, begin adding the eggs one at a time, being sure to fully incorporate each egg before adding another to keep the batter smooth. Add 6 of the 8 eggs. The dough should be thick, but fall slowly and steadily from the spoon when you lift it out of the bowl. If the dough is still clinging to the spoon, add 1 or 2 more eggs, and mix until incorporated. (Alternatively, you can incorporate the eggs in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.)
Using a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip, pipe the dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet into approximately 1-inch mounds; smooth out any pointy tips with a fingertip dipped in water. Bake for 25 minutes, until the puffs are set, golden brown, and perfectly dry in the middle.
For the Chocolate Pastry Cream: In a medium saucepan, heat the milk and vanilla bean just to a boil over medium-heat. Immediately turn off the heat and set aside to allow the vanilla bean to infuse for 10 to 15 minutes. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until they are light in color and fluffy. Sprinkle in the cornstarch and whisk vigorously until no lumps remain. Whisk in 1/4 cup of the hot milk mixture until incorporated. Whisk in the remaining hot milk mixture, reserving the empty saucepan.
Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer back into the saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat, whisking constantly, until thickened and slowly boiling. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and melted chocolate. Let cool slightly. Cover with plastic wrap, lightly pressing the plastic against the surface to prevent a skin from forming on the pastry cream. Chill for at least 2 hours and then transfer to a pastry bag fitted with a small round tip.
To Fill the Cream Puffs: Poke a hole with in the bottom of each choux with a round pastry tip. Through the hole, pipe it full of the chocolate pastry cream. Set aside.
For the Caramel: Combine the sugar and water in a clean saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, and then add the glucose. Simmer over a medium-heat until the mixture reaches a light golden caramel color. Immediately remove it from the heat and let it rest for 5 minutes. The mixture should continue to darken in color.
To Decorate the Cream Puffs (optional): While the caramel is hot, dip the tops of the filled cream puffs in the caramel. If desired, sprinkled white sugar grains over the wet caramel for added flair. Set the dipped cream puff on a tray to allow the caramel to harden. If the pot of caramel begins to harden, re-warm it over a low heat.
To Build the Croquembouche: To build a small croquembouche, count out 10 cream puffs. These cream puffs will be the bottom row of the tower. Organize your cream puffs into groups of 9 puffs, 8 puffs, 7 puffs, etc. down to 1 puff. These groups represent each row of the tower (each row of the tower will have 1 fewer cream puff than the row under it).
Use the remaining caramel to stick puffs together on their sides, tops facing outwards, into a conical pyramid to form the croquembouche. Be sure to layer them like bricks, so that a cream puff sits between the "joint" of the two cream puffs below it. Decorate with spun or pulled sugar if desired.
*A large croquembouche, like the one in the video, requires 160-180 cream puffs; triple the given recipe.
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