pate a choux

Vacation baking: Croquembouche

Posted on by Ruth
croquembouche
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I know, I said my last post was the final recipe of the year. But…croquembouche!

Making one of these iconic cream puff towers held together with caramel has been on my to-bake list for years. My kids have actually been begging me to make one after witnessing croquembouche construction on the Cupcake Jemma channel. But for obvious reasons we haven’t had a large gathering since then (AKA an excuse for croquembouche).

On Christmas, we finally had plans to see my family (first time in two years). If ever there was an opportunity for croquembouche, this was it. We are at my parents’ place so I didn’t have my normal arsenal of baking equipment. But after looking at a few tutorials online I was pretty certain we’d survive. Here’s how it went down.

(Note: this is less of a formal recipe and more thoughts and tips from the experience, which I wanted to jot down before I forget. However, I have included the chocolate creme legere recipe because yuuuuuuuum!)

Equipment

I tried not to buy much special equipment for this bake, but I did get some piping bags and tips at a local craft store as well as a 12″ cake round for presentation. I also recommend the following tools:

  • A digital scale
  • At least 2 large baking sheets for piping and baking choux buns
  • A 1″ round cutter (or something similar; I used a bottle cap) for cutting craquelin and tracing guides
  • Rolling pin for craquelin
  • Parchment paper for rolling craquelin and baking choux
  • Electric hand or stand mixer for making choux and whipping cream (I used an electric hand mixer. You could potentially do this all by hand with a wooden spoon, whisk, and a bit of elbow grease.)
  • Medium saucepan for making pastry cream and caramel
  • Whisk for pastry cream
  • Silicone spatulas for pastry cream and filling piping bags
  • Chopstick or paring knife to make holes to fill choux
  • Protective gloves for working with caramel
  • Skewer or fork for spinning sugar

Step 1: Choux au Craquelin

I made the croquembouche over two days. On day one, I made the choux and pastry cream base; and on the second I finished the pastry cream with whipped cream, filled the puffs, and assembled the tower.

I didn’t have a mold to aid construction, so for structural stability I knew it was especially important to make my choux all the same size. Adding craquelin topping helps choux rise evenly (and tastes delicious), so that seemed like a step worth taking.

My goal was to make ~70 cream puffs. I was aiming to make the bottom of the croquembouche 11 cream puffs round, then decrease each successive round by 1 puff to form the cone shape. Mathematically, this requires 66 puffs, but it’s always prudent to have a few extras.

I made the craquelin topping first, as it needs time to chill so you can cut out the rounds. Once chilled down, I used a 1″ bottle cap to cut out the rounds, then froze them until ready to bake the choux.

To ensure the choux were all about the same size, I used the same bottle cap to trace 70 rounds on parchment paper (35 per sheet). All in all, I ended up having enough choux paste for about 85 small/medium puffs.

Once all my puffs were baked and cooled, I picked out 11 and arranged them in a round so I could estimate the size of the base, then marked out a circle in the center of my cake board for reference. (You definitely don’t want to be fiddling around with this when working with hot caramel, so do as much architectural planning as you can beforehand!)

Step 2: Chocolate Crème Légère

You could fill your choux with anything, but I was in the mood for something creamy and chocolate-y. Enter: chocolate crème légère — or chocolate pastry cream “lightened” with whipped cream. I thought that in addition to tasting delicious, the chocolate would help create an extra-stable pastry cream that would hold up at room temperature (it worked). I would definitely make this filling again — it was delicious and almost mousse-like, and the bitterness from the chocolate helped temper the sweetness of the caramel.

To fill the cream puffs, I used a chopstick to make a hole on the bottom of each puff. Then I used a piping bag fitted with a bismarck tip to fill each puff until heavy, then cleaned up any overflow with a small knife. I definitely overfilled my pastry bag the first time which made it harder than necessary to fill the puffs. So word to the wise: don’t fill the bag more than halfway to make life easier and less messy!

filling choux buns

Chocolate Crème Légère

Makes enough to fill 70+ small cream puffs, plus some extra for snacking

Ingredients:

For the chocolate pastry cream:

  • 600g whole milk
  • 125g granulated sugar
  • Pinch of kosher salt
  • 40g cornstarch
  • 20g Dutch-processed cocoa powder
  • 4 large egg yolks + 1 large egg
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 42g unsalted butter, cold and cubed
  • 170g chopped bittersweet (~70%) chocolate

To finish:

  • 500g heavy cream (35%), chilled
  • 25g icing sugar

Method:

Place a strainer over a large heat-safe bowl.

Off heat, combine the milk, 50g of the sugar and a pinch of salt in a medium saucepan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the remaining 75g sugar, cornstarch, and cocoa powder. Pour in about 2 tbsp of the milk mixture and whisk to form a smooth paste. Add the egg yolks and whole egg and whisk until smooth.

Heat the milk over medium heat until steaming. Remove from the heat. Pour the milk in a slow, steady stream into the egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly. Scrape the custard mixture back into the saucepan and return to medium heat. Cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture thickens and large bubbles appear on the surface. Once the bubbles appear, turn the heat down to medium-low and continue whisking on the heat for 2 minutes.

Remove the custard from the heat and whisk in the vanilla extract, butter, and chocolate. Strain the pastry cream into the prepared bowl. Press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the pastry cream and cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until set (at least two hours, or up to 3 days).

When ready to fill the puffs, whip the heavy cream and icing sugar to soft peaks. Whisk the pastry cream to loosen, then use a flexible spatula to gently fold the whipped cream into the pastry cream in three additions. Fold just until homogenous and no streaks of cream remain.

Transfer the cream légère to a piping bag fitted with a plain round or bismarck tip. Use immediately. Leftovers make a great mousse-like dessert; enjoy plain or with a sprinkle of crushed cookies!

Step 3: Caramel

Caramel is the glue that holds a croquembuche together. I decided to also dip the tops (craquelin side) in caramel, which is optional but gives the whole thing an extra pretty shine. If you go this route, I definitely recommend making your caramel in two batches — one for the dipping the tops, and one for gluing the puffs together and spinning around the tower. I thought I could just reheat the caramel as needed to reliquefy it, but you can only do that so much before the caramel just gets too thick to work with.

For this sized croquembuche I ended up caramelizing ~600g granulated sugar in two 300g batches. I used the wet method as it’s more hands-off, but dry works too.

The assembly was fairly straightforward. Slightly tip the puffs in so you get a nice cone shape, and decrease by one puff each layer so the shape forms naturally. As you move up, place the puffs in the divot between the two below it. When you get to the last puff for each round, take an extra few seconds to find the puff that fits best.

It definitely helps to have an extra set of hands to help with assembly — one person can hold together puffs as the caramel sets while the other dips and arranges the next. And as always, caramel is HOT so wear gloves and keep kids and pets in a different room. Gently stir the caramel with a skewer every few dips to redistribute the heat and keep it liquid as long as possible.

I ended up building the tower as planned starting with 11 puffs at the bottom and decreasing each round until I reached 4 cream puffs. Then I just finished it off on the top with a single, slightly-larger puff.

Once constructed, I used a skewer to spin leftover caramel in threads around the entire tower. This was definitely my favorite part of the entire project!

And that’s it!

Thanks to my sister-in-law Janelle for helping with the photos!

Strawberry Mango Cream Puffs

Posted on by Ruth
strawberry mango cream puffs

Whether you’re looking for a Valentine’s treat or something sweet to chase away the winter blues, these strawberry mango cream puffs are the perfect baking project! They are so, so fun to make and incredibly fresh and delicious. Thanks to a couple magical ingredients, these sweet little pastries boast an intense fruity flavor that will transport you to a tropical location (or at least bring to mind memories of warmer days!).

Pâte à choux

  • plain choux

Pâte à choux, or choux pastry, is really a magical thing. Mastering choux opens up a whole world of cream puffs, eclairs, crullers, gougeres and other delicious pastries; so it’s really worth spending time to get comfortable making it. (I’ve even got a whole chapter of choux recipes in my cookbook!) Honestly, making choux is not hard; as long as your recipe is solid you just need to make it a few times to get a sense of the visual cues and dough consistency, and to work out the best practices for your oven. If you’re new to choux, I recommend reading this tutorial at IronWhisk and this article on Serious Eats for a plethora of useful tips. Then just practice! Once you’ve got it, you’ve got it.

Craquelin

If you’ve ever wondered how professional bakeries get perfectly round cream puffs with that pretty crackly top, the answer is craquelin! Craquelin is basically a simple cookie dough. You roll it out thinly, then punch out little round cookies the same size as your piped choux dough. These cookies are placed on top of the choux right before baking; as the pastries bake, the craquelin bakes onto the puff, crisping and cracking along the way. Craquelin adds a hint of sweetness and texture (plus extra wow factor!) to your cream puffs, but feel free to omit it.

Specialty Ingredients

To make these strawberry mango cream puffs as written, you’ll need a couple of special ingredients. The first is strawberry couverture chocolate — I used Valrhona Strawberry Inspiration. This type of chocolate is made with freeze dried fruit for an intense and natural fruit flavor. It is truly delicious — I have to hide mine to keep my kids from snacking on it! I bought mine from a local baking supply store, but Strawberry Inspiration is readily available online. If you can’t source this ingredient, you can substitute regular good-quality white chocolate and make a whipped white chocolate ganache instead.

The second specialty ingredient is freeze-dried mango. I got freeze-dried mango at Trader Joe’s, but again it’s fairly easy to find online or at specialty food shops. You cannot substitute regular dried fruit or puree in this recipe as the water content and flavor intensity is not the same. However, you can substitute another freeze-dried fruit or just omit the freeze-dried fruit if you prefer; the filling will still be delicious.

Baker’s Notes

  • While there are a lot of components in this recipe, none of the steps are very hard and you can spread out the work over a couple of days. I like making the strawberry ganache and craquelin a day ahead, then the rest of the components the day of serving. I’ve also included make-ahead notes in the recipe for additional options.
  • If you’re short on time, you can make just one of the fillings! If you do just the strawberry ganache, I would cut off the top third of each puff with a serrated knife, then pipe the filling inside. Replace the tops after adding the filling. Alternatively, fill the puffs with lightly sweetened whipped cream, pastry cream, or ice cream.
  • I have large baking sheets and can bake off this entire batch at once. Depending on the size of your baking sheets, you may need to bake on two sheets. I prefer to bake one sheet at a time for best results. The second sheet of piped choux can be kept at room temperature while the first bakes (wait until right before baking to put the craquelin on). Raise the oven temperature back up to 425F before baking the second sheet. Alternatively, bake both sheets at the same time on racks in the upper and lower thirds. Bake the puffs for at least 25 minutes before rotating the sheets.
  • strawberry mango cream puffs top down
  • strawberry mango cream puffs

Strawberry Mango Cream Puffs

Makes about 18 medium cream puffs

Ingredients:

For the whipped strawberry ganache:
For the craquelin topping:
  • 42g unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 50g light brown sugar
  • 50g all-purpose flour
For the choux pastry:
  • 75g water
  • 75g milk
  • 70g unsalted butter, cubed
  • 1 tsp granulated sugar
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 100g all-purpose flour, sifted
  • 150g eggs (about 3 large), at room temperature and lightly beaten to combine
For the mango cream:
  • 50g freeze dried mango
  • 50g granulated sugar
  • 78g cream cheese, cold and cubed
  • Pinch of kosher salt
  • 300g heavy cream, cold
To finish:
  • Sprinkles, freeze-dried fruit bits, fresh fruit slices (optional)

Method:

  • Make the strawberry ganache: Finely chop the strawberry inspiration chocolate and place in a heatsafe bowl. In a small saucepan over medium heat, warm the cream until steaming. Remove from heat and pour over the chopped chocolate. Let stand for 1 minute, then gently whisk until combined. Cool to room temperature, then press a sheet of plastic wrap against the surface and refrigerate until completely chilled, at least 4 hours and up to 5 days.
  • Make the craquelin topping: In a small bowl, beat the softened butter and brown sugar until smooth. Add the flour and mix until a dough forms. Scrape dough onto a piece of parchment paper. Place another piece of parchment paper on top and roll dough to about 1/16″ thickness . Freeze while you prepare the choux. (Craquelin can be made up to 1 month in advance; freeze, well wrapped, until ready to use — no need to defrost.)
  • Make the choux pastry: Preheat the oven to 425F with a rack in the middle and line a large baking sheet (see baker’s notes) with parchment paper.
  • Combine the water, milk, butter, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a strong simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally. As soon as the mixture is simmering, remove the pot from the heat and dump the flour in all at once. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon or spatula until the flour is completely incorporated.
  • Return the pot to low heat. Continue stirring vigorously until the mixture clears the side of the pot and forms a ball and a thin film forms on the bottom of the pot, about 2 to 3 minutes. The dough should register 170-175F on an instant-read thermometer and be stiff enough that if you stick a small spoon in it, the spoon remains upright. Immediately transfer the dough to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the dough on low speed for 1 to 2 minutes to release the steam. An instant-read thermometer should read no warmer than 140F —any hotter and you’ll cook the eggs when adding them!
  • When the dough has cooled sufficiently and with the mixer still on low, add about one-third of the beaten eggs in a slow, steady stream. Mix until the egg has been completely absorbed, then add more egg 1 tbsp at a time, mixing each addition in completely before adding more. When you’ve added most of the egg and the dough has taken on a glossy sheen, check the dough consistency—a finger dragged through it should leave a trough and a peak of dough should form where the finger is lifted. Once the dough passes this test, it’s ready. You may not need all the egg—I usually have 1 to 2 tbsp leftover.
  • Transfer the dough to a piping bag fitted with a large round piping tip. Pipe mounds of dough about 1 3/4 in diameter on the prepared baking sheet, leaving about 2 inches between each.
  • Cut the craquelin rounds: Once all the puffs have been piped, remove the craquelin dough from the freezer. Let stand at room temperature for a minute or two to soften slightly, making it easier to cut. Use a round cutter the same diameter as the puffs to cut out circles of dough, one per puff. Gather and reroll the scraps as needed. Place one craquelin round on each puff, pressing lightly to adhere.
  • Bake the choux: Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375F and continue baking for another 20-25 minutes, or until the puffs are completely golden brown and feel hollow when you pick one up. About 5 minutes before the puffs are done, use a skewer or small knife to poke a small hole in each puff to help them crisp (avoid opening the oven door before this as the heat loss may cause the puffs to collapse!). Once the puffs are done, turn the oven off, prop open the door, and allow to cool in the oven for about 5 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. (You can freeze baked choux buns in an airtight container for up to 2 months; defrost at room temperature right before filling. You can make them a day ahead and store at room temperature for up to a day, but you’ll want to recrisp them in a 325F oven for about 10 minutes as the pastry will soften. Cool completely before filling.)
  • Make the mango cream: In the bowl of a food processor, combine the freeze-dried mango and sugar. Pulse until the mango has broken down into a fine powder, about 1 minute. Add the cream cheese and salt and pulse to combine. Scrape down the sides of the food processor. Add the cold cream and process until the mixture resembles very thick yogurt, about 45-60 seconds. Be very careful not to over-process as you’ll end up with a fruit butter! Transfer to a piping bag and refrigerate until needed.
  • Whip the strawberry ganache: Using a handheld mixer or whisk, whip the chilled strawberry ganache until it thickens, lightens in color, and holds medium-stiff peaks. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a french star tip. Refrigerate until needed.
  • Assemble the strawberry mango cream puffs: Use a chopstick to poke a hole into the bottom of each puff. Snip off the tip of the piping bag holding the mango cream. Insert the tip into the hole and pipe in the mango cream until the puff feels heavy. Repeat until all puffs have been filled. Pipe a swirl of whipped strawberry ganache on top. Garnish with sprinkles, chopped bits of freeze-dried fruit, or slices of fresh fruit. Enjoy immediately, or refrigerate and enjoy within 4 hours of assembly. The puffs will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 1-2 days, but the pastry will get progressively soggier with time.