History of the French dessert
When describing the process of preparing any dish (not just the Croquembouche delicacy), it is always useful to familiarize yourself with its history, because this is the only way to find a real classic recipe.
Unfortunately, in our case, history has not preserved the name of the creator of such a beautiful sweet masterpiece, but it is known for sure that he was French. Around the 60s of the 17th century, he happened to attend one of the wedding ceremonies in London, where the pastry chef was surprised at how carelessly the cooks decorated the wedding cake - the filled pies simply rose on a tray in a shapeless mound.
Taking this recipe as a basis and adding a little to it, a cook unknown today created a very impressive cone-shaped cake, holding the individual pies together with caramel. This creation was called “Croquembouche”, although a little later, instead of pies, profiteroles with snowy air cream inside began to be used.
It is caramel that is considered a classic addition to the described cake, but nowadays there are many other step-by-step Croquembouche recipes where it is not used.
The author who gave the world croquembouche
“You can never have too much of a good thing,” thought the lovers of profiteroles and made a cake out of them. This, quite possibly, was the story of the birth of this stunningly beautiful French dessert. But there are several more romantic and entertaining versions of the legends of the origin of this dish.
According to one of them, a certain French pastry chef, having attended a high-society wedding celebration, was surprised by the careless, disdainful attitude towards traditions: instead of a beautifully decorated wedding cake, the guests were served just a mountain of cakes and pies.
A wounded sense of beauty forced this pastry chef to try to somehow rectify the situation: he built the cakes in the form of a pyramid, fastened them with caramel and decorated them with caramel threads. And then, in his kitchen, after numerous attempts, he improved his idea, creating that same croquembouche.
New Year's Croquembouche Photo:
How to cook Croquembouche at home: step-by-step recipe
Nowadays, the Croquembouche cake, which is a pyramid of profiteroles, is baked not only for weddings, but also for various celebrations. A wide variety of creams can be used as filling, and grated chocolate and nuts are great for decoration. In fact, preparing such a dessert is quite simple; you just need to follow the recipe exactly and adhere to the sequence of performing all culinary tasks.
So, first, let’s start preparing the choux pastry, which, without exaggeration, can be called the basis of the French “Croquembouche”.
- Take a small saucepan and combine water (200 ml) and 125 g of oil in it, bringing the mixture to a boil over medium heat;
- Remove the container from the heat and add flour to the already used ingredients, stirring it well to avoid the formation of lumps;
- Beat the eggs separately, turning on the mixer at maximum speed;
- Now add one tablespoon of beaten eggs to the hot mixture of our choux pastry;
- The dough is ready, all that remains is to transfer it into a pastry bag and, covering a baking sheet with parchment paper, place small round cakes on it;
- Place the resulting eclairs in the oven (it must be preheated to 190°C) and bake for 20 minutes.
While the profiteroles are cooking and cooling, you can move on to the caramel sauce and cream for filling the Croquembouche cake.
First the sauce. To prepare it, you need to take a small saucepan and mix 60 ml of water and 100 g of sugar in it, then put the mixture on the fire and bring to a boil (so that the sugar dissolves). At the same time, pour the cream into another saucepan and place it on the stove to heat up.
If you pour cold cream into the syrup, it will splash a lot.
As soon as the sugar dissolves in the saucepan, stop stirring and skim off the foam. You also need to moisten a silicone brush in water and run it along the walls of the container to collect all the remaining sugar crystals, otherwise, once they get into the syrup, they will cause it to crystallize, as a result of which a solid lump of sugar will form in the saucepan. Leave the syrup on the stove for 3-4 minutes, and as soon as it thickens a little and starts to turn golden, you can remove the saucepan from the heat.
Pour 2-3 tbsp into the hot mixture. spoons of hot cream, mix gently with a whisk, and then pour out all the remaining cream. Together with the cream, return the saucepan to the stove and cook, stirring, until the sauce becomes smooth and homogeneous. Once you have achieved this result, remove the saucepan from the heat, add salt and butter, stir well - the sauce is ready. It should be served warm, although if necessary, you can cool it and store it in the refrigerator.
Each housewife can choose the desired color of sugar syrup and, accordingly, caramel. To do this, you only need a sugar thermometer, which must be placed first in a bowl of hot water and only then in a container with caramel. For light caramel, the syrup should reach a temperature of 160°C, and for dark caramel - 175°C.
Recipe for Croquembouche cream
While our profiteroles are cooling and the caramel sauce is already waiting in the wings, we begin to create the filling for the Croquembouche cake, the basis of which is butter cream. To do this, beat the butter (200 g) with a mixer until it turns white, then add caramel sauce a tablespoon at a time. Place the finished cream in a pastry bag and fill the eclairs with it.
"Croquembouche": recipe for step-by-step preparation
Let's start by preparing the choux pastry. The first step is to sift the flour so that it becomes light and enriched with oxygen. Next, turn on the stove and place the pan with milk over medium heat. Add salt and oil there. Stirring constantly, melt the butter and bring the liquid to a boil. Then turn off the heat and add flour, whisk until smooth. Then, armed with a spatula, stir the mixture until it thickens.
Next, we need to wait until our dough has cooled down so that we can add the eggs. Add them one at a time and then mix them with a mixer until completely homogeneous. Here is our dough for the Croquembouche cake made from profiteroles is ready.
How to beautifully decorate and serve Croquembouche
Considering that the Croquembouche cake, the recipe with photos of which is described step by step above, cannot be called a standard dessert, its assembly is somewhat different. I take flat small saucers and place a three-story pyramid of eclairs on them: the first floor consists of five pieces, the second of three, and I put only one profiterole on top. To fill the inside of our cakes with cream, I make a small cut at the bottom, into which I insert the spout of a pastry bag, squeezing out the cream.
Having made several of these pyramids (Croquembouche mini-cakes), we decorate each of them with caramel thread. Caramel is prepared as follows: melt the sugar over low heat without stirring (for 1 cup, take ¼ cup of water and ½ tsp of vinegar) until it is completely dissolved. In order for the thread to stretch better, the caramel must cool a little. The same caramel can be used to glue the profiteroles together, which will give the pyramid additional stability.
Translated from Latin, caramel means “sugar cane,” and Indian Dalits realized the importance of this product several thousand years ago. It was they who managed to obtain the first primitive caramel.
How to harvest croquembouche
To assemble the croquembouche you will need a cone made of paper or other food material and ready-made hot caramel.
For caramel you need to take 300 g of sugar and 225 ml of water. Dissolve sugar in water, bring sugar syrup to a boil, then boil caramel to +154°C. As soon as this temperature is reached, dip the bottom of the pan in cold water for a few seconds so that the temperature of the caramel does not rise further by inertia.
Dip one side of each profiterole into caramel and place around the prepared cone. If the caramel begins to harden during use, you can gently reheat it over a fire.
After assembly, allow the croquembouche to cool for at least 30 minutes. Decorate the finished, assembled croquembouche with thin threads of caramel, edible flowers from the marzipan mass, and sprinkle with candied almond flakes.
Tips and tricks for making dessert
Caramel for Croquembouche is the most standard option for decorating it, but if desired, it can be replaced with chocolate glaze. In addition, berries, nuts, and fruits can serve as a good additional decoration. As for the dough for profiteroles, you can use milk instead of water , but the main thing is that the amount of liquid for the Croquembouche cake corresponds to the above recipe with photo. For a more intense vanilla flavor of the dessert, you can add a little vanilla extract to the cream.
There are also some tricks when decorating a cake. For example, for a perfectly flat surface, you need to make a cone out of cardboard in advance, placing it on a plate or tray, and lay out the cakes in a circle around it (in a spiral).
Croquembouche cake decoration
The recipe for making dessert differs slightly between different masters, and decorating a cake is a real art, beyond the control of novice confectioners. And here everyone has their own secrets. Real masters create simply works of art, decorating the dessert with caramel threads entangling the entire cake. Also used for decoration are chocolate glaze, candied flowers and fruits, cream and much more. Nowadays, such a dessert is served not only at wedding celebrations, and not only to royalty, and therefore the cake is decorated in accordance with the theme of the holiday. Thus, New Year's versions of the Croquembouche cake have become very popular, which truly look magical and fabulous.
Croquembouche is served chilled. You can offer drinks with it. For example, hot chocolate, tea or coffee, or even a cocktail.
Video recipe for making Croquembouche
It cannot be said that the recipe described is the easiest way to prepare dessert for the holiday table, but it will undoubtedly surprise your guests. In addition, having understood in detail exactly how to prepare Croquembouche, this process will no longer take you much time. All the nuances of baking and design features of the delicacy are presented here:
If you have any questions about creating the Croquembouche cake, you will find the answers to them in the recipe, which is presented in detail in the video.
Croquembouche dessert history
The invention of the French holiday table decoration, the Croquembouche, is credited to Marie-Antoine Carême, one of the first representatives of haute French cuisine, who included it in the 1815 cookbook “The Royal Parisian Kitchen” (“Le Pâtissier royal parisien”). Even earlier, this dessert was mentioned in 1806 in Alexandre Viard's culinary encyclopedia - "Le Cuisinier Impérial" ("Imperial Kitchen") and in the book of the first Parisian restaurateur Antoine Beauvilliers', who also cited the recipe in "L 'Art du Cuisinier' ('Culinary Art') in 1815.
In Wiard's culinary encyclopedia and other earlier cookbooks, croquembouche was included in the list of desserts. At that time, this was the name for complex dishes; they were both salty and sweet, served during the opening of large banquets and grand feasts.
In popular culture, on March 6, 2009, graduates of the National Institute of Hotel Management and Catering in Pune, India, built the world's largest croquembouche - its height was 4.5 m!
