My group of Improv friends had an early New Year’s/late Christmas party tonight and I knew I wanted to make a croquembouche! I don’t get a chance to make them often, so I jump on it when I can.
I went a little crazy this year with three different flavour fillings and two kinds of craquelin (my first craquelin!)
The plain are filled with vanilla creme diplomat, the pink with raspberry creme diplomat, and the chocolate with chocolate creme diplomat. It was a decadent feast.
The only flop was that my caramel was spot on, then some of the chocolate craquelin came off one of the cream puffs and set the whole batch to bubbling again, causing it to burn halfway through assembly. So, as you got closer to the top of the croquembouche it tasted a little burnt – though honestly I didn’t mind the flavour! Also, since the caramel got so dark, I didn’t do as much of the typical sugary strings around the croquembouche as I would have liked. I had visions of oodles of golden stringy caramel, but since I had to wrap it in plastic to transport it, it’s probably for the best that it didn’t work out, haha.
In this interior shot (taken after a few layers of puffs had been eaten :)), you can see just how dark the caramel got once it started to burn.
Recipes:
I made the following pastry creams, flavoured some of the vanilla with raspberry jam passed through a sieve, and then folded in whipped sweetened cream to create creme diplomat.
Craquelin: 6 tbsp butter, 1/2 c brown sugar, 3/4 c flour (add 2 tbsp cocoa for chocolate, or red gel food colouring for pink). Beat the snot out of the butter, add the dry, mix until it starts to form a dough. I ended up kneading it a LOT, it wouldn’t come together. Roll to 1/4" thick between layers of parchment and freeze for half an hour. Cut circles and place them on top of puffs before baking.
Caramel: 2 c sugar + 1/2 c water, swirled over medium high 'til deep amber.