Friday, May 28, 2010

Daring Bakers Challenge: Croquembouche

Phew, I made it. A seemingly simple tower of cream puffs or a croquembouche, if you're fancy, almost stymed my attempts at participating in this month's Daring Baker's Challenge. But I triumphed, and I learned how to make a pate a choux, an eggy dough that can be used for dumplings and gougeres or cheese puffs. Yes, please!


So not the highest tower of cream puffs ever, but we're just lucky it happened at all, k? If you want to see a better representation of this dessert, check out the other Daring Bakers or simply Google image search croquembouche. Either the French have a lot of time on their hands or they're just really good at cranking out intricately decorated towers of cream puffs.


The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

7 comments:

  1. AgoMay 28, 2010 at 10:10 AM

    :-D I understand your satisfaction, It's the same for me! :-D
    I learn so much thing in this challenge...and I'm happy for this!
    Kisses
    Ago :-D

    ReplyDelete
  2. strawberriesinparisMay 28, 2010 at 10:55 AM

    Phew!!! You made it! and I love the carnations. :-D

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMay 28, 2010 at 1:21 PM

    Did you ever see the Martha Stewart holiday special w/ Julia? This was after Julia' stroke and she made this little asymmetrical mound of puffs. Martha (who was not that well known at this point) created this perfect tower wrapped in spun sugar. I decided right then and there that I didn't like Martha. Nobody shows up Julia!!!

    -Liz

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  4. Baking AddictMay 28, 2010 at 6:44 PM

    Your choux pastry looks great. I'm so glad I know how to make them now. The flowers add a nice touch.

    ReplyDelete
  5. MemóriaMay 29, 2010 at 2:39 AM

    Good for you!! I wish I had made mine more simple and small like you did. Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  6. YummitaMay 29, 2010 at 1:26 PM

    Beautiful pate a choux :)

    Cheers

    Yummita

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousJune 2, 2010 at 11:52 PM

    I think you should be proud that your tower is so short...it just means they were so yummy that we didn't even need a beautiful presentation to sow them down. Those cookies on the other hand...

    ReplyDelete

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