Croquembouche

Croquembouche

"I have some good news and some bad news." I said to Dan as he walked into the kitchen, the kids finally asleep for the night. 

He looked at me.

I forged ahead. 

"The good news is: Congratulations! Our submission for the rhyming story challenge placed seventh and we're moving onto the next round!" I held up my hand for a high five.

He obliged. 

"The bad news," I continued. "is we have three days to plan and write our next rhyming submission while planning and creating an epic multi-pastry croquembouche." 

He continued looking at me.

"They are due the same night," I added helpfully. I made the "Eek" emoji face at him. He made it back.

...

A croquembouche, which I had learned the existence of a mere 60 minutes before introducing the concept to my husband, is defined by Merriam-Webster as "a cone-shaped stack of cream puffs coated with caramelized sugar." 

The internet helpfully informed me that croquembouche is pronounced, "/ˌkräkəmˈbo͞oSH/" which wasn't helpful at all and inspired images of the Kraken performing an epic belly flop. 

Why was I researching French pastry? Why must I create this cone of deliciousness? It was time for our Annual Bake Off challenge, an international event of visual confectionary delight! (By which I mean: My family and some friends who live in Canada try our hand at a themed baking creation after watching the latest season of the Great British Bake Off and then we show each other the results over Zoom). 

This year our theme was "Festive Trees" and while researching possibilities I had stumbled across this amazing bake at Anges de Sucre. A fantastic re-imagining of a traditional croquembouche breaking beyond the cream puff limit to include a whole smorgasbord of pastry - macarons, donuts, eclairs! 

So I came up with a plan. 

img 1. The Plan

It would be gold and white thereby achieving Christmas elegance AND avoiding all the nasty chemicals in colored food dye. This latter goal went sadly awry as I later found myself spray-painting "edible" who-knows-what all over the meringues to achieve the perfect golden shimmer. Oh, and the golden sprinkles. And I think some white food gel? Anyway, the point is: that goal was not perfectly achieved. 

So we made a vanilla cake. And macarons. And meringues and cinnamon buns and a GIANT. CONE. OF. CARAMEL. POPCORN.

This was a feat of engineering. We made a cone-shaped mold out of flip-chart paper and crammed the molten caramel popcorn into it to form the base of our croquembouche. Then, once it dried a bit and held its shape, we put it in the oven (the final caramel popcorn-making step) mold-less. But the heat of the oven returned the popcorn to its previous molten state and the cone started collapsing all over itself. So in the end, we crammed it back into the mold, turned off the oven and let it slowly dry out in the residual heat of the oven in its mold.

I don't know. Don't try this at home. I'm still freaking out about paper in the oven even though it all turned out fine. I guess the ignition temperature of paper is between 425-475 degrees Fahrenheit and our oven was at 200 or something and then off, but ack!

 

I also learned about the delights of spun sugar. So fickle! So sticky! Then so brittle!

Anyway, it all turned out fine. And we even got our rhyming story submitted in the nick of time.  🐙 /ˌkräkəmˈbo͞oSH/🐙!!!

 

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