Officially, a croque-en-bouche (or croquembouche) is a tower of choux pastry balls piled into a cone and bound with threads of toffee and is traditionally served (in France and Italy) at weddings, christenings, first communions and Christmas. St. Honoré cake (so named for the French patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs, Saint Honoré) is a gorgeous creation of puff pastry and profiteroles, filled with Crème Chiboust (pastry cream, mixed with whipped egg whites or double cream).
Profiteroles come in all shapes and sizes: the dainty little ones that are used for the tower, larger for the cake, oblong for éclairs, gigantic for the Bossche Bol (named after the city Den Bosch in The Netherlands) and every size in between (depending on how greedy you are).
Traditionally, profiteroles are filled with whipped cream or thick-set custard (pastry cream or crème pâtissière) and decorated with chocolate, caramel or icing sugar. Times have changed since the creation of the cream puff and fillings such as ice cream (mainly in the USA) or savoury fillings such as cream cheese are also used.
If you were to believe my husband, profiteroles are impossible to make. And I know that he is not the only one to think so. Yet they are not as difficult as you might think. And you don't need more than a pan, a wooden spoon, a cocktail stick, two bowls and two spoons or a piping bag with nozzle. Oh, it might also be handy to have a baking tray and some baking paper/parchment.
The hardest part of making profiteroles is deciding what you are going to fill them with, how you are going to decorate them and not eating the lot of them once they're ready...
Profiteroles
- 120 gram plain flour
- 100 gram unsalted butter
- 4 eggs
- 300 millilitre water
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 220°C and line two, large, baking sheets with baking paper or parchment
- Sift the flour into a large bowl, from a height to get as much air into the flour as possible
- Put the butter and water into a (small sauce) pan and bring to the boil
- Add the flour and stir until it comes away from the sides of the pan in a ball
- Take the pan from the heat and leave to stand for a couple of minutes
- Gradually add the eggs, one at a time, stirring constantly and making sure the egg is fully incorporated before adding the next egg
- You should end up with a stiff, smooth and shiny paste
- Either spoon the mixture into a piping bag with a 1 centimetre plain nozzle and pipe walnut-sized rounds, set well apart, or spoon the mixture onto the prepared baking sheets in little (still walnut-sized) blobs
- After you have done all the piping; wet your index finger with a little water and smooth the top of each ball/blob. Make sure to keep wetting your finger after each one
- Make sure to leave some space between the rounds/blobs as the mixture needs room to spread a little
- For éclairs: pipe the mixture into 10 centimetre long strips (cut the end of the length of pastry of with a wet knife)
- Place the baking sheets in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes (20-25 minutes for éclairs, the balls will have risen and have a lovely golden colour
- Remove the trays from the oven and (with a cocktail stick) prick a little hole in the bottom of each puff
- This will allow the steam to escape
- Place the trays back in the oven for about two minutes to crisp up (five minutes for éclairs)
- Remove from the oven and place on wire rack to cool completely
Now you are ready for the most difficult part: Traditional or Modern? Sweet or Savoury? Below are some options...
- Traditional (sweet)
- 800 millilitre double cream
- 400 gram good quality dark chocolate
- 50 gram butter
- 4 tablespoons golden syrup or honey
- Pour 200 millilitre of cream into a pan and whip the rest until just peaking
- Add the chocolate, butter and syrup/honey to the cream in the pan and gently heat until the chocolate is melted
- Spoon the whipped cream into a piping bag with a 5 millimetre star nozzle
- Pipe the cream into each puff via the bottom (where you pricked it with the cocktail stick) and fill the puff until the cream just comes out at the bottom
- If you don't have a piping bag, slit the puffs slightly open at the side and spoon the cream in
- Arrange the puffs on a serving plate, stir the sauce and pour over the profiteroles. Serve immediately, with the rest of the sauce on the side
- Croque-en-bouche
- If you really want to impress try this one; there are special moulds you can buy but with some ingenuity and a steady hand you don't need to go to that expense. Saying that, it will be slightly more difficult to get the straight sides...
- Make the profiteroles as above and fill them with cream (see Traditional)
- Make a caramel by melting sugar over medium heat until it turns a dark golden colour. Take the pan off the heat as soon as the sugar turns golden
- Do not stir the sugar as this will cause the sugar to crystallise; a gentle swirling motion of the pan will suffice if you are afraid of burning the sugar
- On a piece of parchment paper, draw a circle which will guide you when making the tower, and turn the paper over
- Place one circle of puffs on the drawn circle
- Take extreme care when using the caramel as this will cause major burns: Dip the bottom of one puff into the caramel (just enough to give it a thin coat) and place the puff partway onto two puffs slight more toward the centre of the tower
- Keep 'glueing' the puffs onto each other, making the circle smaller as you work upwards
- Place the last puff right on top and decorate the tower as desired
- Savoury filling
- As there is no sugar in the pastry, cream puffs are easily changed into a savoury snack
- Make the profiteroles as above
- Whip cream cheese (any flavour you like) until it is soft and resembles softly whipped cream
- Fill the profiteroles with the cream cheese
- You can add flavourings to the cream cheese as you like, try for instance: smoked salmon, chopped finely, with dill or garlic and herbs.
Your only limitation is your imagination
As they say in France
Bon Appétit
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