A towering triumph of French pâtisserie, the croquembouche requires mastery of several techniques culminating in a visually stunning and divinely delicious dessert. Loosely translated as “crunch in the mouth,” croquembouche is an edible construction held together by an intricate network of hot spun sugar and caramel. Not for nothing is the croquembouche considered a French wedding cake. It’s beautiful to behold, but it seems forbidding to the home baker. For our holiday incarnation, we decided to amend the blueprint slightly so this magnificent spectacle can be brought to the home kitchen. We keep the building blocks as pâte à choux and the creamy insulation as the pastry cream but use chocolate glaze as the sweet cement.
Our step-by-step guide to croquembouche will tackle each technical element. First, we’ll walk you through making pâte à choux. A twice-cooked dough—first on the stovetop and again in the oven—choux is like a magic air bubble of pastry. It harnesses the power of steam rather than leavening to rise in the oven. While baking, the outside sets, with the fat crisping into a golden exterior. Inside, the trapped air pockets combine and expand into one perfect void. We fill this golden hollow with luscious pastry cream and stack it tall and proud with a little help from a glossy chocolate glaze. Besides “O Tannenbaum,” this profiterole tower will be the most handsome sight of the holidays.
CHOCOLATE-GLAZED MINI CROQUEMBOUCHES
Makes 3 small profiterole trees/85 to 95 profiteroles
Our simplified version of classic croquembouche is designed to bring you all the showstopping glamour of the original but with just half
