May 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge - Piece Montee or Croquembouche

For a few years I have noticed on a number of the food blogs I follow the Daring Bakers. They set a challenge each month and the members all make the same item, with significantly varing and wonderful results to post on their blogs.

How wonderful I thought to myself, this will make me grow as baker and challenge me to try things I would never think of. I am a Daring Baker I decided to myself, actually a long time ago and last month I finally signed up.

Except I was pretty busy this month and thought I signed up after the cutoff date and wouldn't have to start until next month........Eeeek I was wrong!!!

Oh well I guess it's called a challenge for a reason.

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.


The recipe provided by Little Miss Cupcake was easy to follow and worked well, so the actual baking of the puffs and making of the cream was relatively easy.

So my first try I flavoured the cream with rosewater and it was a pretty delicious flavor combination.

I had just baked a batch of macarons and decided to try and include them in the decorations so here is my first attempt play around. I used chocolate instead of toffee as I had a 20 month old holding onto my legs during the construction stage and didn't feel comfortable with all that hot sugar flying around.

So here are a couple of variations on my first attempt.

See I made a funny little disk out of the choux pastry to help support it as I didn't want to use the toffee.

Then I decided to get serious and use toffee. Not a big fan of toffee these days, although as a kid I can remember my mum making it for fair sweet stalls at the school and I loved it then.

My dislike of the toffee might have something to do with the fact that I had croquembouche for my wedding cake and I still remember now trying to get one of those hard toffee balls out of the cake. 

I stuck the puffs together using just a little toffee on the bottom of each. I was making some sugar 'Halos' for another project which I posted a couple of days ago so I made some larger ones to pop over the top of this project. I also attempted spun sugar which actually worked but I thought it looked a bit messy when applied.

I took a couple of quick photos outside, it was still only 6ish in the morning and it's coming into winter here so still not much light. All was going pretty good. I planned to take the real photos after school drop off.

Then disaster in the form of my 21 month old son. He ate the top before I got any great shots
.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh well, he did really enjoy it.

Overall the project was a bit of fun, and something I wouldn't have chosen to do myself. The choux pastry and cream are reasonably easy to make and taste great on their own or with a chocolate sauce. I don't like toffee so I wouldn't go to the trouble to built a structure again unless it was for a specific reason, but it was a great challenge. Thanks Little Miss Cupcake :)

Vanilla Crème Patissiere 
 2 cup (450 ml.) whole milk
 4 Tbsp. cornstarch
200 g. sugar
2 large egg
 4 large egg yolks
 4 Tbsp. (60 g.) unsalted butter
1 Tsp. Vanilla
1 tsp Rosewater
Dissolve cornstarch in 1/2 cup of milk. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan; bring to boil; remove from heat.
Beat the whole egg, then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.
Return the remaining milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking.
Continue whisking (this is important – you do not want the eggs to solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil. Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla and rosewater.

Pate a Choux (Yield: About 28)
¾ cup (175 ml.) water
6 Tbsp. (85 g.) unsalted butter
¼ Tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup (125 g.) all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

Pre-heat oven to 425◦F/220◦C degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.

Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly. Add 1 egg. The batter will appear loose and shiny.

As you stir, the batter will become dry-looking like lightly buttered mashed potatoes. It is at this point that you will add in the next egg. Repeat until you have incorporated all the eggs.
Piping:
Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip (I piped directly from the bag opening without a tip). Pipe choux about 1 inch-part in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high about 1 inch wide.
Using a clean finger dipped in hot water, gently press down on any tips that have formed on the top of choux when piping. You want them to retain their ball shape, but be smoothly curved on top.

Bake the choux at 425◦F/220◦C degrees until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes.Lower the temperature to 350◦F/180◦C degrees and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.
Filling:
When you are ready to assemble your piece montée, using a plain pastry tip, pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux with pastry cream using either the same tip or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet. Choux can be refrigerated briefly at this point while you make your glaze.

Toffee for Halos

Instructions for the toffee I used are in my Halo Cupcakes post click here for the link

 Assembly

Group the puffs and do a trial run at arranging them, use the larger puffs at the bottom. Once are happy with how you will be arranging the puffs, pop the bottoms into the toffee and working quickly stack the puffs. Decorate with spun toffee, halo's or ribbon and flowers.