Towers of cream puffs make croquembouche a delicious, fun dessert

On a recent trip through Quebec's Eastern Townships, I came across croquembouche on a restaurant menu: a tower of cream puffs filled with cream, curd or pastry cream, traditionally glued together with molten sugar spun over the pillar in wispy threads.

Croquembouche translates to "crunches in the mouth," and it's a dessert close to my heart. In Grade 2, I made one for a baking competition at the Calgary Public Library.

I can't recall how I glued them together. Perhaps I used the molten sugar, with which my mom would have helped. But I do remember climbing onto a stool to pour the maximum possible quantity of chocolate overtop, thinking it surely would convince the judges to crown me the winner.

Sadly, my sister won with her banana clown cake, which remains printed in the resulting cerlox-bound cookbook in her handwriting to this day.

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Still, I make croquembouche occasionally. It was my birthday cake of choice for years and it's perfectly suited to special occasions.

It's a good excuse to pick up some disposable pastry bags, although a zip-lock or even spoons will work in a pinch to fill the pastries.

Choux pastry is not tricky to make, and it's so satisfying to pull those golden puffs from the oven. Once you've mastered it, try stirring in grated aged Gouda or Gruyère for gougères to serve with beer, wine or cocktails.

Many French pastry shops sell individual croquembouche. The small piles of three to five cream-filled puffs are an easy option, too.

If it's for a birthday, sparklers are perfect for topping it off.

Croquembouche

The cream puffs are a fairly standard recipe, adapted slightly from judge Rochelle Adonis and the Great Canadian Baking Show. I use regular butter, not unsalted, and a beaten egg to brush on top instead of just the yolk. You only need a tiny bit, anyway.

I like to let mine sit a bit before spooning or piping onto a baking sheet. It will cool further and thicken slightly, and not settle as much on the sheet before it bakes.

Cream puff ingredients:

• ½ cup butter.
• 1 cup water.
• ½ tsp salt.
• 1 cup all-purpose flour.
• 4 large eggs.
• 1 egg and 1 tbsp water for egg wash.

Filling ingredients:

• 1 container mascarpone (275 g).
• 1/3 cup of either icing sugar, white sugar, brown sugar or maple sugar, or ¼ cup honey.
• 2 cups whipping cream.
• 1 cup sugar for gluing and spinning.

Preparation:

To make the cream puffs, preheat the oven to 218 C (425 F). In a medium saucepan, combine the butter, water and salt. Bring to a boil.

Remove from the heat and stir in the flour. Continue to stir until the mixture forms a smooth ball, cleaning the sides of the pot.

Transfer dough into a stand mixer and mix on low until the dough is lukewarm.

Continue to mix the dough while adding eggs one at a time. Do not add the eggs while the dough is hot. That will cook the eggs and ruin the smooth texture of the dough.

To test for the right consistency, scoop up some dough with your spatula and let it slide back into the bowl. It should fall off the spatula in a V-shape.

Transfer the dough to a piping bag or heavy duty zip-lock bag, with a corner snipped off. Pipe 3.8-centimetre (1.5-inch) rounds onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Alternatively, drop them with a small scoop or spoon.

Gently brush the top of each puff with egg wash.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 190 C (375 F) for another 15 minutes to dry them out.

Cool completely before filling.

To make the filling, beat the mascarpone with your sugar of choice until smooth. Add the cream and beat until fluffy and thick. Spoon into a piping bag or zip-lock bag and snip off one corner.

Poke a hole into the side of each completely cool cream puff. Pipe the cream filling inside to fill.

Place the cup of sugar in a medium saucepan with about ¼ cup water. Bring to a boil.

Cook, swirling the pan occasionally until the mixture turns golden.

Remove from the heat and use tongs to dip the bottoms of the filled cream puffs in the melted sugar and stack in concentric circles. Making a tall pile or a few smaller ones.

When the syrup has cooled enough to start to thicken and fall in a thin stream, use one or two forks to drizzle fine threads of the sugar over the croquembouche tower.

Serving: Makes either one large, two medium or four to six small croquembouches.

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With files from the Calgary Eyeopener.