-It is hard to think of
something that feels more celebratory
than a croquembouche, and you have this incredibly
beautiful creation. ♪♪ Hey, everyone,
I'm Claire Saffitz. I am here in the Munchies
test kitchen, and today I'm going to show you
a recipe from my new cookbook, "Dessert Person," for something
called croquembouche, which is like the Mount Everest
of pastry recipes. So we start by baking
the cream puffs, and there is an important
element called craquelin that goes on top
of the cream puffs, and that helps to give the cream
puffs a really round, even shape and a nice
kind of textured surface. I'm starting with a stick
of butter, room temp, and I'm just
kind of beating it a little bit against
the side of a bowl. And now I'm adding brown sugar,
a pinch of salt. So I have this
pretty well creamed. And now all I'm adding
is all-purpose flour. I'll just fold this together. It will make
a fairly stiff dough. Croquembouche
is a French recipe. It means "crunchy in the mouth." And that comes
from that hard caramel that's on the exterior
of the cream puffs. It's an incredibly
celebratory recipe. So something I've made
for New Year's. I think it's traditionally like
a wedding dessert in France. So if, at a certain point, your
spatula just isn't cutting it, get in there with your hand. We're going to turn it over
onto itself a bunch of times, get it even. It's all come together. I'm going to just
divide it in half, and then, I'm going
to roll out each half between two pieces
of parchment paper. So I'm going for 1/8
of an inch thickness. Okay. And I'm going to basically punch
out with a one-inch cutter. If you don't have
a one-inch cutter, you can use a bottle cap. And these are going to sit on
top of the cream puffs as they bake.
I position the cutter as close together as possible
so that I maximize my yield. And a good technique for the
cutter is pressed straight down and then twist once
you hit the parchment. I want to get a yield
of 70 cream puffs, which is a comfortable number
to work with. Once you have all
the craquelin separated, that's going to rest
in the refrigerator. Now we can move on
to the pate à choux, which is kind of the base
of this recipe. It's a very eggy dough, and that
is what gives the dough its, like, intense puffing action
that makes the cream puffs. So it's cooked on the stove
and then obviously baked. So the 1/2 a cup of milk,
and I'm going to add 1/2 a cup of water. This recipe for pate à choux was in the foundation's
chapter in the cookbook because it's just something that
you'll use over and over again. And I actually think
it's really fun to make. I have butter.
So salt and sugar, as well. This is not
an overly sweet recipe. You can also make, like,
savory puffs with this. This mixture has just come up
to a rapid simmer. Now, all in one shot,
I'm adding the flour. And then, you want, immediately to stir the flour in.
Don't stir too vigorously, 'cause you'll, like, splash
the hot milk mixture on you. And so what we're doing here
is cooking the flour, and you'll see it immediately
comes together into a dough. So I want to cook this mixture until it loses its raw,
floury taste and I have a nice,
cohesive dough. And I'm also trying to drive out
some of that moisture. Your dough comes together,
and you have a clean pot. You'll see that a film
will form in the saucepan. And I actually continue
to cook and stir like this until the film is,
like, reabsorbed. So this will take
several minutes. Bring it together by doing this. So we have this
really nice, smooth dough. The saucepan
is perfectly clean. I'm ready to take it
off the stove. We'll let it rest because,
if I were to start adding eggs now, the mixture is
so hot it might cook the egg. So I'm going to let it hang out
for like a minute or so. Whiles that is resting, I'm going to trace my circles
for my cream puffs. It is very helpful for the architecture
of the croquembouche to have perfectly uniform puffs. I think I can get, like, 35
basically on a single tray. So that would be 7x5. If you're not using a perfect
one-inch round, that's fine. It's actually more important
that they all be the same size. And it goes ink side down
on your sheet tray. So another trick,
rather than tracing, is buttering your sheet tray. You just need a very,
very thin layer. Going to dust it with flour
to create a nice, even, and, like, very thin coating. Tap it around.
Take your cutter. And you're
basically pressing down into that floured surface
and turning it, and then you can see
the outline of the ring. One reason I like the parchment
is I think that, actually, like, this creates more browning
on the bottom. The parchment I prefer because
you can get more even baking. Let's finish up
the pate à choux. I'm going to turn my mixer
on low, medium-low. So I have five eggs here that
are fairly room temperature. I might not need all five eggs. This is a step where
you're really going to rely on visual indicators
to kind of let you know when you've added enough eggs. Gonna add them one at a time. Once you add an egg,
it's very normal for the mixture to look like it's losing
its cohesion. That's normal. It will all come back together
the more you mix. I'm going to wait until this egg
is fully incorporated and the dough is smooth again,
and then I'll add the second one. Onto egg number three. That one. Ooh.
[ Laughing ] God. I'll just throw it back in. So that's the last egg. And the dough, when it's done,
will be silky and smooth, like a sheet, just like that. I'm going to put it into
my pastry bag, fold down the top of the bag. You could use a resealable
plastic bag like a Ziploc or anything with high sides. You're going to gather the top
of the bag, pressing out any air,
and give it a twist to seal the bag. So I'll snip like a 1/2-inch
opening or so. [ Laughing ] Yeah, I know -- Thank you. It can be really
annoying to pipe on parchment if it's moving around,
so I make a really little dabs in each of the four corners
of the sheet tray. So, now, for piping,
you don't want to move the bag. You keep in the tip
of the pastry bag right at the circle, and you
just squeeze until it's filled. So if your pate à choux
is the right texture, you should get a nice mound
that settles a little bit but mostly keeps its shape. I have some pate à choux left, and so
I'm looking at them being like, oh, these are a little smaller.
So now I'm going to go back because I want to use
everything that I have. So I'm just adding
a little bit more. Oh, God. Stupid. Why -- Why --
This is not a good idea. Thought it was.
My sister. I was actually just talking
to my sister on the phone, and I was telling her like,
"Oh, I'm making croquembouche." And she was like,
"Oh, are you going to tell everyone the story of
when you made it at my house and you, like, got really mad
at me and, like, banished me from
my own kitchen?" I was like,
"Well, no, I wasn't going to." But I was in her kitchen making
a croquembouche and I burned the caramel,
and it was, like, I did what I had said
in the beginning not to do, which was, like,
I kind of under-planned and was, like,
stressed out about time. I, like, yelled at her
and, like, we got in a fight and then I, like,
made her go buy me more sugar. And that was the whole story. And she was like,
"Remember that time?" And I was like, "Yes,
we talk about it constantly. You always bring it up." Now you just take the craquelin
and place it on top like a little hat.
And don't press down. You can just let it kind of rest
gently on top. If you decided to omit
the craquelin in this recipe, then you would want
to egg wash them just for that
extra bit of shine. The thing that gives these puffs
that ability to, like, rise and hollow out so that you have that,
like, hollow interior for filling is all those eggs. And it benefits from a nice
blast of heat at the beginning. So I actually preheat
the oven to 425. So these go into a very hot
oven, and then I drop the temp immediately to 375, and then
they bake all the way through. And I'm going to make sure
that they're thoroughly baked so they don't collapse. Components three
or four of the croquembouche is the pastry cream filling. I have two cups of milk,
just a little salt. Salt is a flavor enhancer. I'm going to grab a paring knife
to scrape vanilla bean. You can use extract,
you could use paste. The whole thing goes in and let
this slowly come up to a simmer. So this is obviously
a vanilla pastry cream, but I'm going to add chocolate
to it to make a chocolate version. So this is dark chocolate. I'm just chopping it up
into bits. I think the chocolate tempers
some of the sweetness. And it also makes
a firmer-set pastry cream, which I think works
really well into croquembouche. One of the reasons why
pastry cream is so delicious is because it has
a lot of egg yolks in it. So five large egg yolks.
It's easier to separate eggs when they're cold. Pastry cream
is kind of easy to goof up. But one of the best things
that you can do to ensure success
is to use a pot that has a really
thick bottom and walls. If you have a really flimsy,
thin aluminum pot, that's not ideal because
there's always a risk of it scorching on the bottom. I'm going to do what's
called blanch my egg yolks. So that is adding sugar
and cornstarch. So cornstarch is also
the thickening power in addition to the egg yolks. And I want to whisk
all of this together. I'm going to start kind of slow,
and it will seem like there's too much of the sugar and cornstarch to incorporate
with the yolks, but it will smooth out
and then loosen up a bit. Sometimes I have to hold
the bowl down here, sorry. You don't get to see this part.
It's a secret. Okay, you can see
it, like, folds onto itself in what's called a ribbon and it
sits there for a few seconds before it settles into the rest
of the mixture. Right now
I can see little bubbles are starting to kind of form
under the surface. There's a bit of a skin on top,
so we're ready to go. This next step
is called tempering. Set this on a towel
so it won't move around. I'm going to pour
some of the hot milk mixture into the egg mixture
and slowly bring up the temperature,
whisking constantly, by the way. Then all of this
can go back into the saucepan. And that just prevents
any of the eggs from curdling or changing temperature
too quickly. It's on, like, medium heat. You need to constantly agitate
the mixture so that you don't get
any scorching or even curdling on the bottom. It kind of looks like
nothing's happening for a while, and then you immediately
start to see a change. If your pastry cream
is not thickening, try turning up your heat
a little bit. But that thickening happens
very quickly. You want a pretty stiff
pastry cream, so it's okay to stop whisking
long enough to sort of see
if anything's happening, but then you want to immediately
start again so that nothing scorches.
If you do scorch it, just make sure you strain
it really, really well. This is ready
to come off the heat. And I'm pretty confident that,
like, I didn't overcook it. I don't see any curds in there, but it's a good idea
just to strain it anyway. And of course, it's going to
take out that vanilla bean. I'm adding cold cubed butter
a piece or two at a time. The butter, of course,
makes it richer and makes it taste
extra delicious. But because butter obviously
is solid at room temperature, it also increases
the kind of setting power and thickens it, as well. So once you see
the pieces kind of disappear, you can add a few more.
Hit pause on these. I'm going to rotate my cream
puffs, which are baking. You can see how beautiful
and evenly puffed they are. This is basically done. This is now vanilla
pastry cream, but I'm adding
the chocolate to it. The heat that's still
in the pastry cream will just melt everything. So here is this, like, just
beautiful, gorgeous, delicious chocolate pastry cream.
And then I cover this, and that is to
prevent a skin from forming. I press the plastic
directly onto the surface of the pastry cream, and this just goes right
into the fridge. My cream puffs are done,
but it's very important that the dough is thoroughly
dried out so that the moisture inside doesn't
cause the puff to collapse. And I just prop the door open and let them finish baking
and cool for about 15 minutes. I'm going to show you the last
step of the pastry cream. This is the chocolate pastry
cream that has chilled. So it has fully set.
So, to smooth it out, I'll just give it a once over
with a whisk. But I like to add
a little crème fraîche. I like the tang that it adds,
and it lightens it a little bit. ♪♪ You want to put the tip inside
before you fill the bag. And then, same thing
with filling. ♪♪ The cream puffs are done.
Oh, my gosh, they look so good. We poke holes in the bottom
of each of the puffs with a paring knife. I'm going to go back into
that little opening with the pastry tip. I'm using just
a regular round tip. So, how do you know if you
filled it the right amount? I like to go by weight.
Like, it should feel solid, for lack of a better word. I made this for my family
last holidays. It was the talk of the town. When I made it, my --
my brother-in-law was, like, obsessed with it
and was -- He came into town, like, later
than everyone else and I was like,
"So we -- we have a -- I made -- I made you
a croquembouche." And the whole weekend, he was
talking about his bouche, how much he loved it.
[ Laughs ] We are moving on
to the caramel stage. So caramel is the last component
of the croquembouche. I have granulated sugar, and I'm making
what's called a wet caramel, meaning I am dissolving
the sugar in water first. Going to to bring this up.
Because you're adding water, there is always a risk that
your sugar will crystallize. So that just means you want
to be careful stirring it. You don't want to over-stir it.
Once we start to see it turn color and take on
a little bit of an amber hue, that's like we're already at
the caramel stage that we want. So, really, we're just going
for a color. So I'm not stirring anymore
because I don't want to encourage crystallization. I'm going to swirl the pot.
And by swirling, I'm helping to even out the
temperature all the way around. I can take the wet pastry brush
dipped in a little water, and I'm just brushing down
the sides of the pot. That's re-dissolving
any undissolved sugar. I probably haven't made
more than 10 croquembouche. I think it has an S on the end,
but you just say croquembouche. It's like "les" versus "le,"
I guess. That's about as far as
I got in my French education. So I'm at that stage where most
of the water has boiled off. And I know that because
the bubbles that I'm seeing are much bigger
and slower bubbles, not the kind of rapid bubbles
of water boiling. And I'm starting to see some
golden tones on the surface. And it goes from light golden
to light amber to amber to dark amber
to burnt remarkably fast. I'm actually moderating
the temperature a little bit and turning it down because
I don't want it to go too fast. Caramel that goes to dark
just gets a little bit bitter. All right.
So I'm at a good color. The caramel
will continue to take on color because
there's so much heat in it. So I actually transfer
the caramel into a heat-proof bowl
or measuring cup and make sure it's, like,
really clean and dry. You want to use tremendous
caution when dipping. So that's why
I'm putting on a glove, 'cause it at least creates
a little bit of a barrier if it gets on your skin. And that way it hardens
on the glove and on your skin. And now I'm taking
the puffs one at a time and dipping them craquelin side
down into the caramel. And I just want to get
that beautiful caramel coating. And at this stage,
it's still very liquid. As it sits in this bowl,
it will harden. So at this stage where it's very
liquid, I kind of turn the puff so that I don't get, like,
a big trip down one side. I'm just grasping like
a claw hand so that I can dip the entire
face into the bowl and then putting it
right side up. So I'm trying to work as quickly
as possible because it's also cooling
and, therefore, thickening. All right. Now we're do
that whole thing again with another batch. No one said this was quick,
this recipe. ♪♪ Okay. You're going to
start assembling. So I have my first ring. I built progressively
smaller rings, and that's how you get
that cone shape. A sheet of parchment paper
is going to be my kind of circular guide. And now I'm taking, this time,
a side of the choux. If there's a wider side,
if it's a little bit more oval, I'll go for the wider side. And I dip the side
in the caramel. I'm going to place
on the side of the plate. ♪♪ And I also like to angle ever
so slightly toward the center, because, again, like,
I'm not making a cylinder, I'm making a cone, so it's going
to slope gently up the sides. ♪♪ So, now, when I'm building
the second ring, I'm actually going in between
the little gap created from the two below. So I have some extras
that I saved. So I might have
to employ an extra one... with them. I put that on the side. So I can see that, like,
this last ring that I did, I think it's a little bit
too, like, sloped inward, so I might try
to finagle it a little bit. If your caramel starts
to harden, try zapping it in the microwave, and that should loosen it up. ♪♪ Okay, so, now I'm going to start
to create threads around the croquembouche. So I want to wait until
the caramel is cool enough that it falls in a thread and starts to harden
and kind of pull it and wrap around
the whole croquembouche. All right.
And here is a croquembouche. This thing is obviously
quite towering. I wouldn't recommend
transporting this, but it is relatively stable. Like, this caramel,
it's not going anywhere. But as it sits, the moisture in the pastry
cream, over time, will hydrate the caramel, and it will
become sticky and soft. There's only one thing left
to do, which is taste it. You see the chocolate
filling inside? Crunchy caramel. Mm. So crunchy. And just the right amount
of filling inside. Such a good desert. You can check out the recipe
in "Dessert Person," or you can click the link below.
Check it out. And why not give it a try? ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪
I was thinking about making one of these for Christmas Eve, but after watching this video I’m like maybe not lol.
Truly the best Claire. Silver lining to everything I we get to see Claire in her natural habitat, not being forced to make frikin pop rocks.
Real ones remember this dish from The Weekenders.
I set myself the challenge of making everything in Dessert Person and this is one of the things I am not looking forward to.
heck YAAAA 🤪🤪
[removed]
I just would really love to have her as a friend. I enjoy her so much. The yummy food would def be a bonus tho 😋
beautiful video!
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