French Croquembouche Profiterole Cake

Step-by-step cooking

1. Step 1:

   

   First, to make a Crockembouche cake, prepare a cone shape*.

2. Step 2:

   

   Prepare custard cakes**.

3. Step 3:

   

   To do this, cut the butter into a small cube and put it in a saucepan with a volume of 1.5-2 liters .

4. Step 4:

   

   Add milk, water and a pinch of salt.

5. Step 5:

   

   Put the saucepan on the fire and bring the contents to a boil. The butter should be completely melted at the same time.

6. Step 6:

   

   Be sure to sift the flour, this is important, because if there are lumps in the flour, it will be difficult to break them during brewing.

7. Step 7:

   

   And without removing the saucepan from the heat, add all the flour immediately.

8. Step 8:

   

   Actively stirring the mass with a wooden spoon or spatula, brew the dough for 1-2 minutes over low heat. During this time, the dough should gather into a single mass and turn into a smooth lump, and a thin flour coating should form at the bottom of the saucepan.

9. Step 9:

   

   Transfer the brewed part of the dough to a bowl and let it cool. To make the dough cool down faster, I just stirred it with a spoon for 4-5 minutes.

10. Step 10:

    

    While the dough is cooling, break the eggs into a bowl and shake lightly with a fork. If you have eggs of a fairly large size, then you may need 7 eggs.

11. Step 11:

    

    When the custard part cools down a little, start adding eggs in small portions. At the same time, mix the dough very thoroughly. As soon as the portion of eggs completely intervenes, you can add the next portion.

12. Step 12:

    

    At the exit you should get a very soft, shiny dough.

13. Step 13:

    

    Fill a pastry bag with a round nozzle with the finished dough. If you don't have a bag, then take an ordinary thick bag and cut off a corner from it, or spread the dough simply with two teaspoons. Cover the baking sheet with baking paper and use a bag to separate the dough in the form of small slides at a distance of 3-4 cm from each other. Try to put the dough in small portions, literally the size of a quail egg.

14. Step 14:

    

    You can smooth the tails on the dough with a finger soaked in water.

15. Step 15:

    

    Bake profiteroles in a preheated oven first for 20 minutes at 200 C, then lower the temperature to 160 C and bake them for another 15-20 minutes until a beautiful golden crust. By the way, it is very important: do not open the oven door for the first 20 minutes, otherwise the profiteroles may fall off! Remove the finished profiteroles from the oven and leave to cool.

16. Step 16:

    

    Prepare the custard**.

17. Step 17:

    

    Pour the milk into a saucepan, put it on the fire and heat it well, almost to boiling.

18. Step 18:

    

    Meanwhile, combine eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar in a bowl.

19. Step 19:

    

    Whisk lightly. You can not achieve complete dissolution of sugar, it will disperse when hot milk is added.

20. Step 20:

    

    Add flour to the egg mass (it also needs to be sifted) and mix thoroughly.

22. Step 21:

    

    Pour hot milk into the resulting mixture in a thin trickle, while constantly stirring with a whisk.

23. Step 22:

    

    Pour the resulting mass back into the saucepan and put it on a small fire.

24. Step 23:

    

    With constant stirring, brew the mass until a thick smooth cream is obtained. To do this, just bring the cream to a boil - you will notice how bubbles begin to appear on its surface and that's it, you can remove the cream from the fire. And also, be sure to mix the cream constantly, do not leave it for a minute, otherwise it may burn and, in addition, lumps may form in it.

25. Step 24:

    

    Pour the finished cream into a bowl and, stirring from time to time, leave it to cool for 10-15 minutes. By the way, if you suddenly have lumps in the cream, then just strain it through a sieve.

26. Step 25:

    

    In the cooled cream, stir in the butter.

27. Step 26:

    

    Cover the finished cream with a film so that the film fits snugly to the surface of the cream and cool it well.

28. Step 27:

    

    When you have the profiteroles, cream and cone mold ready, you can start assembling the cake. Prepare the caramel ***.

29. Step 28:

    

    To do this, pour sugar into the center of the saucepan, add water to it. If sugar crystals hit the walls of the saucepan, then be sure to wash them off with a slightly damp brush.

30. Step 29:

    

    Put the saucepan on the fire and melt the sugar to the state of caramel under high heat. Be careful, you can mix the mixture only until it boils. Also watch the color of the caramel, do not burn it.

31. Step 30:

    

    Dip the caps of 30 profiteroles into the hot, freshly cooked caramel * *** and put their caps on a sheet of parchment greased with a thin layer of vegetable oil, leave the profiteroles in this form for 5 minutes so that the caramel completely freezes. It is not necessary to do this, but in this form the cake will turn out to be more elegant in appearance. Try not to make the caramel layer very thick, so that it is convenient to eat profiteroles.

32. Step 31:

    

    Here is such a beautiful caramel crust obtained on cakes.

33. Step 32:

    

    Fill a pastry bag with a narrow nozzle with cream and stuff it with 60-70 small profiteroles (30 pcs. with caramel crust and 30 pcs . without it).

34. Step 33:

    

    Assemble the pyramid. To do this, if necessary, cook a fresh portion of caramel and gently dip the filled profiteroles from the side (from the side where they will come into contact with other cakes) and cover the entire cone with them, alternating cakes with and without caramel crust.

35. Step 34:

    

    Cut off the tip of the cone, so it will be more convenient to lay out the last cake. Here is such a cute Christmas tree turns out.

36. Step 35:

    

    Traditionally, Croquembouche is decorated with fresh or sweet flowers. I used sweet (sugar) roses. You can glue sweet flowers with caramel or melted chocolate.

37. Step 36:

    

    At the very end we decorate the cake with caramel threads. Just keep in mind, this should be done no more than 1-2 hours before serving, since caramel is very whimsical and these threads begin to melt over time. To make caramel threads, cook a new portion of caramel and let it cool down a little, dip a fork or whisk into it and wait until the caramel begins to drain with a thin thread and start wrapping the cake with these threads.

38. Step 37:

    

    Crockembush cake from profiteroles is ready!

39. Step 38:

    

    When serving, the cake is not cut, but simply disassembled into cakes.

40. Step 39:

    

    Bon appetit!