Sunday, August 2, 2009

Crocquembouche

About a week ago I posted a blog about Choux and I wasn't able to get all the pictures up I wanted. So this is a continuation of the post about Choux.

Crocquembouche, pronounced like kroke -em- boosh, is traditionally made for weddings or baptisms.

A crocquembouche is a giant cone made out of profiterols, choux balls filled with pastry creme that are decorated with various toppings.

The one pictured about is Chef Toni's. She used the same choux dough to pipe out "FCI" for the top decoration. The base and stand is constructed out of nougatine (almonds and caramel). So the whole thing is edible... but I wouldn't recommend eating it cause it's nothing but sugar, sugar, sugar and a little bit of dough just to hold all the sugar together.

Each student made their own Croquembouche. It worked out perfectly for me cause I served mine at my wedding reception the following day. Another guy took his to his baptism but most everyone else just threw them in the compost.

Some of them didn't survive the night but most of them looked great!

To create the cone, each individual piece needs to be dipped into hot caramel. The caramel acts as a glue to hold the pieces together, but like any glue it has to dry first. The whole process is quite long and tedious because you have to hurry up and wait for the caramel to cool. It's also difficult to keep the caramel hot for a long period of time and there were several people who burned their fingers while dipping their profiterols in the caramel.


They can be decorated with roasted coconut, pearl sugar, pistachios, chocolate bits, caramel or even caramel swirls.

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