French croquembouche

Croquembouche is a traditional French christening and wedding cake that isn't a cake at all—it's an impressive tower of caramel-crusted cream puffs. With a bit of patience, you can make this towering dessert at home.

<p>Popular in France for weddings and other festive occasions, a croquembouche—a dramatic tower of cream puffs that are stuffed with pastry cream, held together with caramel and wrapped in spun sugar—also makes a showstopping centerpiece for your holiday table. And, although the recipe may seem complex, the cream puffs can be made up to a few weeks in advance and stored in the freezer, and the pastry cream can be made up to 3 days in advance. However, you should assemble the dessert no more…

Vincent brings us the croquembouche we will be making. It has about 50-60 choux balls on it and is about 30 cms high. Shows us the decorations that we can choose from. There are fresh flowers, tiny choux balls covered with cocoa nibs, crystallised violet, chopped pistachios and pearl sugar. There are also egg shaped silver dragees. I ask if Mr NQN and I can combine our choux balls and make one double that size as I want to test whether I can do it.

This is what happens when your kids watch Gordon Ramsay’s MasterChef Jr, and this is why I love cooking shows. Never in a million years would have I thought to make this recipe with my kids (ages 7 and 9 at the time), yet I did.…

Croquembouche

There are a few things every experienced baker thinks of trying in their lifetime. They are recipes that are known to be notoriously finicky and difficult, usually French. The kind of desserts you …

Croquembouche with olive foliages

Choux pastry type tower

Emma Knowles recipe for Paris-Brest with hazelnut praline cream.

Croquembouche recipe :: Gourmet Traveller

'I want to make a video of you making some kind of food that is extremely difficult.'That's how Eagle photographer Stephanie Zollshan approached me on a recent Tuesday morning, and like any …

The traditional French wedding cake is the croquembouche; a decorated conical spire of caramelized, filled choux, or cream puffs, bound together with caramel.

This iconic show-stopping French dessert features chocolate-filled cream puffs piled into a towering cone and bound with sweet, amber caramel.

This is a delicious recipe for a croquembouche filled with rhubarb curd and creme chantilly. This is great for a celebration and you need a bit of skill in the kitchen, but it's not too tricky. The rhubarb curd recipe can be found here.

Is this caramel cream-puff skyscraper a showstopper? Yes. Is it a major-league project? Yes! Here’s the strategy: Make the puffs and the pastry cream a couple of days in advance, then tackle assembly on the morning of the day you plan to serve this.