Croquembouche

My finished croquembouche.

Well this was very hard, but kind of fun and bordering on pretty darn amazing. A croquembouche, for those of you who don't know, is a traditional French wedding cake made of cream puffs stacked to form a conical tower. Since we were just practicing technique we didn't fill the cream puffs, which saved time so that we could finish it in one class.

Decorated choux puffs waiting to be stacked.

To make a croquembouche make small choux puffs (as it turns out mine were a little too big) and fill with cream (if you are going to). Then dip the choux in caramel and (if desired) in nuts, cocoa nibs, pearl sugar, coconut, etc. Using caramel as glue, stick the puffs in a ring on a base (we used pâte brisée). Then stack a ring on top, but slightly off set so (at least in theory) you use one fewer puff to complete it. That makes the cone eventually come to a point. Continue to do that all the way up. Decorate with choux that you pipe into different shapes (if desired) and that's it, an impressive showpiece.

My croquembouche before I added the choux decorations.
I think I actually like it plain more.

Unfortunately it's easier said than done, and mine came out ever so slightly lopsided and with large gaps between the choux (I assume that's because my puffs were too big, so it was harder to fit them together.) Still, I'm proud of mine. It looked pretty and relatively like it was supposed to, so I'm happy!