I actually made something that looks pretty!!!!

Not that you can really tell with my awful food photography skills and my cell phone camera. It was one of those months where I had to choose between a new camera and new tires for my car. I actually thought about it before making the responsible decision. It's good to know turning 30 has really changed me.

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.

I was really nervous when I first read this challenge. While it isn't technically difficult and it doesn't involve cooking with organ fat, this requires a bit of aesthetic finesse. Basically, piece montée is a mountain of cream puffs. While it is edible, it is traditionally a decorative piece. If you couldn't tell by my previous post, decorative is not my game. I'm usually very good at making things taste good, but I lack that inner Martha where everything just looks like art.

Also, the piece montée is a traditional wedding or celebration dessert. And since I was hardly going to sit around and devour a mountain of cream puffs while watching the LOST series finale (that's a lie- I totally would), I suggested making it for my friend, Ootoberfest's, rehearsal dinner.

This was my first time making pâte à choux- an almost flavorless pastry dough that needs to be cooked before it's baked. Making this gives you an awesome arm workout, since you have to add the egg to the hot flour and butter mix and stir fast to keep the eggs from cooking. This dough is used for eclairs, beignets, and profiteroles as well. Not terribly difficult to do, but it does require constant attention. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of these early stages because of that.

Then there's the pastry cream- delicious, messy, pudding-like pastry cream. I went with a variety of vanilla, chocolate and coffee creams. Again, not difficult, but requires a lot attention.



And, finally, the assembly. I had several obstacles with accomplishing this, not the least of which was the massive sugar rush from "taste testing" the pastry creams. First, the traditional croqembouche (translates to "crunch in the mouth") is held together solely with a hard caramelized sugar as glue. But, thanks to the bride's half-hourly weather updates for the weekend, I knew it would be way too hot and humid for the caramel to stay hard. So I went with the alternative of some high quality chocolate from this tiny local candy shop. It was the first dark chocolate that I've eaten and actually enjoyed. Also, this puppy had to travel along I-95 into South Philly on a hot Friday afternoon in an unair-conditioned car and the Phillies were playing. So I took some shortcuts. I used a Styrofoam cone from the craft store, covered it with aluminum foil, and stuck the puffs on with toothpicks. It also allowed me some range for decoration with the strawberries.

So, despite a some chocolate spatterings on the inside of my car and the fact that wine was placed in my hand the second I put the croquembouche down, causing me to forget to take a completed picture until the thing was half devoured, I feel I can call this a success. Not a single complaint.

Would I make this again? Sure, if an occasion called for it. I liked creating a dessert for a party where you don't have to worry about balancing the plate and the drink while using a fork. Also, the small puffs made it more likely for people to eat without feeling too too guilty.When splitting the stages between days, it's really not that time consuming; but this isn't exactly something I would just bring over to a friend's house on a whim.

And so without further ado, the recipe:

You will need approximately 10 minutes to prepare the puff pastry, 10 minutes to pipe and about 30 minutes to bake each batch. The crème patissiere should take about 10 minutes to cook and then will need to be cooled for at least 6 hours or overnight. The glazes take about 10 minutes to prepare.

Equipment required:
• several baking sheets
• parchment paper
• a whisk
• a pastry brush (for the egg wash)
• a pastry bag and tip (a plain tip or no tip is best for piping the puff pastry; you can use a plain or star tip to fill the puff pastry with the cream)
• a flat surface such as a baking sheet or cake board/stand on which to assemble your piece montée
• some of the items you may want to use to decorate your piece montée include ribbons, Jordan almonds, fresh flowers, sugar cookie cut-outs, chocolates, etc.

Ingredients:

For the Vanilla Crème Patissiere (Half Batch)
1 cup (225 ml.) whole milk
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
6 Tbsp. (100 g.) sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
2 Tbsp. (30 g.) unsalted butter
1 Tsp. Vanilla

Dissolve cornstarch in ¼ 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.

Pour cream into a stainless steel/ceramic bowl (this allows it to cool faster- kinda like how cans of beer cool faster than bottles.) Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface. Chill immediately and until ready to use.

For Chocolate Pastry Cream (Half Batch Recipe):
Bring ¼ cup (about 50 cl.) milk to a boil in a small pan; remove from heat and add in 3 ounces (about 80 g.) semisweet chocolate, finely chopped, and mix until smooth. Whisk into pastry cream when you add the butter and vanilla.

For Coffee Pastry Cream (Half Batch recipe)
Dissolve 1 ½ teaspoons instant espresso powder in 1 ½ teaspoons boiling water. Whisk into pastry cream with butter and vanilla.

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

For Egg Wash: 1 egg and pinch of salt (I totally forgot this part. While my puffs don't have the pretty glossy and brown color that others do, it doesn't affect the flavor at all. In fact, once dipped in chocolate, I completely forgot I was mad at myself for forgetting this.)

Pre-heat oven to 425◦F/220◦C degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Preparing batter:
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. DO NOT ADD ALL THE EGGS AT ONCE. I know it seems time consuming, but it'll make your dough too wet and it won't puff up right when baked. It'll also cook 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.

Brush tops with egg wash (1 egg lightly beaten with pinch of salt).

Baking:
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.

Can be stored in a airtight box overnight.

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.

Use one of these to top your choux and assemble your piece montée.

Chocolate Glaze:
8 ounces/200 g. finely chopped chocolate (use the finest quality you can afford as the taste will be quite pronounced; I used dark chocolate from a local candy shop)

Melt chocolate in microwave or double boiler. Stir at regular intervals to avoid burning. Use the best quality chocolate you can afford. Use immediately.

Hard Caramel Glaze:
1 cup (225 g.) sugar
½ teaspoon lemon juice

Combine sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan with a metal kitchen spoon stirring until the sugar resembles wet sand. Place on medium heat; heat without stirring until sugar starts to melt around the sides of the pan and the center begins to smoke. Begin to stir sugar. Continue heating, stirring occasionally until the sugar is a clear, amber color. Remove from heat immediately; place bottom of pan in ice water to stop the cooking. Use immediately.

Assembly of your Piece Montée:
You may want to lay out your unfilled, unglazed choux in a practice design to get a feel for how to assemble the final dessert. For example, if making a conical shape, trace a circle (no bigger than 8 inches) on a piece of parchment to use as a pattern. Then take some of the larger choux and assemble them in the circle for the bottom layer. Practice seeing which pieces fit together best.

Once you are ready to assemble your piece montée, dip the top of each choux in your glaze (careful it may be still hot!), and start assembling on your cake board/plate/sheet. Continue dipping and adding choux in levels using the glaze to hold them together as you build up. (You may want to use toothpicks to hold them in place – see video #4 below).

When you have finished the design of your piece montée, you may drizzle with remaining glaze or use ribbons, sugar cookie cut-outs, almonds, flowers, etc. to decorate (I used strawberries, which complimented the chocolate well.)

Have fun and enjoy! Bon appétit!