Croquembouche

Filled choux buns built into a cone with caramel as the only glue, which gives you about ninety seconds a batch.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter), dairy (whole milk).

Ingredients

• 2 batches choux pastry, as on its own page
• 2 batches crème pâtissière, as on its own page
• 600 g caster sugar
• 150 ml water
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• oil, for the cone

Method

1. THE CARAMEL IS THE ONLY GLUE AND IT SETS IN SECONDS. There is no cream, no icing and nothing else holding this up. Which means you get about ninety seconds of working time per dipped batch, and the whole job is organised around that: everything filled, counted and within reach BEFORE the sugar goes on the heat. Running out of assembled buns halfway up with a pan of setting caramel is how this dish is lost.
2. IT IS BUILT AGAINST A CONE, NOT FREEHAND. An oiled card cone, buns laid against it in rings from the bottom. Freehand, the base spreads under the weight and the whole thing leans further with every ring. The cone comes away at the end once the caramel is hard.
3. ONLY THE SIDE THAT TOUCHES ANOTHER BUN IS DIPPED. Dipping the whole bun gives a solid sugar shell nobody can eat through and uses four times the caramel.
4. AND THE CARAMEL PAN SITS OVER A BOWL OF WARM WATER while you work, not on the heat. On the heat it keeps darkening and goes bitter; off it entirely, it is solid in two minutes.
5. Choux pastry made as on its own page and piped as about 60 small buns, 3 cm across. Baked and pierced as that page directs.
6. Crème pâtissière made as on its own page and chilled.
7. EVERY BUN FILLED AND LINED UP ON TRAYS, and the cone oiled and standing, before the sugar is touched.
8. Sugar, water and lemon juice in a heavy pan over a medium heat, not stirred once it dissolves. Taken to a light amber -- paler than a dessert caramel, because it keeps cooking in the pan.
9. The pan off the heat and set over warm water.
10. Each bun held with tongs, its side touched into the caramel, and pressed against the cone and its neighbours. First ring complete, then up.
11. Rings continued to the top, each one slightly inside the last, the buns offset so they sit in the gaps below.
12. If the caramel thickens past dipping, 30 seconds back on a low heat -- once only.
13. Left 30 minutes to set hard, then the cone eased out from underneath.
14. Spun sugar over it if you like: a fork dipped and flicked round the cone. Assembled the day it is eaten -- the caramel pulls moisture out of the air and goes sticky overnight.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under France · All recipes