Croquembouche
By: Jenny Richards
Published: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - 3:21pm

Ingredients




Gianduia Pastry Cream (see recipe)
Cream Puffs (see recipe)
Coffee Pastry Cream (see cup sugar

Preparation

1 Spoon Gianduia Pastry Cream into a pastry bag fitted with a plain 1/8- to 1/4-inch-wide tip. Push pastry tip into the X-shaped cut in the bottom of 1 cream puff. Squeeze bag to fill the puff as full as possible. Repeat to fill 1/2 the cream puffs. Scoop any extra pastry cream into a bowl, cover, and chill for other uses. 2 Rinse and dry pastry bag. Spoon Coffee Pastry Cream into bag. Repeat step 1 to fill remaining cream puffs. 3 Put sugar in a 10- to 12-inch nonstick frying pan over high heat; frequently shake and tilt pan to mix until sugar is melted and amber, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from heat. 4 Working quickly (be careful, melted sugar is hot), dip bottoms of cream puffs, 1 at a time, into caramelized sugar and set 10, caramel-sides down and edges touching, in a ring on a flat plate, holding each in place briefly until set. Make a second, slightly smaller, ring of cream puffs on the first. Repeat, with each ring slightly smaller than the last, to form a cone-shaped tower. Attach any extra puffs around base. If caramel gets stringy, reheat until melted. 5 Place pan with remaining caramel over heat until melted again. Drizzle over croquembouche. Keep croquembouche in freezer until ready to serve. 6 Use 2 forks to break off cream puffs, 1 at a time; hold in napkins to eat. 7 This recipe yields 12 servings. 8 Comments: Up to 2 weeks ahead, bake cream puffs; store airtight at room temperature up to 1 day. Make fillings and fill puffs. Set on baking sheets and freeze; when hard, seal airtight in plastic freezer bags and refreeze. Up to 2 days ahead, assemble croquembouche (no need to thaw puffs) and refreeze (serve frozen).