Croquembouche Recipe

Backstory

So after watching MasterChef Season 5 and seeing Courtney, Christian and Jaimee making the incredibly beautiful and stunning profiterole tower, I took a liking and kept a mental note about how ONE DAY, I WILL BE THE ONE MAKING THE SAME TOWER OF YUM. And I did.

What to Expect

Expect freaking profiterole tower covered with delicious toffee. In the profiterole, you will have beautiful tasty freaking cream yaw. And if you are expecting to make this, be prepared to risk two hours or more, since it took me about the same time. A complex yet fulfilling dish.

Ingredients
Part A: Profiterole

Part i : The Puff
a) One finger of butter (About the size of two fingers width - I would say around 70g)
b) Milk (200 ml - yeah, I freaking measured, Yay me.)
c) Plain White Flour (I used around 100g - YES I MEASURED)
d) 3 Eggs

Part ii : The Cream
a) Double Cream (The whole cup)
b) Milk (1/3 of the double cream cup)
c) Icing Sugar (I used two teaspoons)

Part B : The Tower of Sauron ( I mean the tower of profiteroles)
a) Profiteroles from Part A
b) One cup of Castor Sugar
c) Half a cup of water

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Procedure
Part A : Making the Profiteroles (The torturing part)

Part i : The Puff
a) Pour the milk and put the butter in the pan and stir with a wooden spoon until it boils. Sift the flour into a bowl and pour it into the mixture after it boils and stir until it has the consistency of soft dough. BRING AWAY FROM FIRE to cool.
b) Bring back to the fire, and beat in eggs one by one while stirring constantly. You do not want the eggs to be fried. To make the process easier, pour cold milk into the pan while doing this. Stir and mix until the mixture has a soft consistency.

When you hold the mixture up with a wooden spoon, you can technically see the batter falling. Its like the consistency of wet mud.

c) Prepare a piping bag and fill the piping bag with the batter. Pipe the batter onto a prepared baking tray lined with baking paper.

How to pipe the profiteroles? Start at the bottom, pipe a little - when you see the batter forming a circle around two inches wide, adjust the height of your pipe higher and pipe again. Then, stop piping and remove the pipe. You do not need to create any pattern by rotating nor piping in a circular motion, the only motion you need to move is upwards from earth. Your piped batter should look like poo, if that is easier to note.

d) Preheat the oven at 190'C double fan forced for around 10-15 minutes and start baking the "to be" profiteroles. It should take around 25 - 35 minutes to be ready. Note the color of the top of the profiteroles should be brown.
e) Take out the profiteroles from the oven when ready, and with a skewer (I used a chopstick coz I asian yo) poke a hole at the bottom of each profiterole. It is easier to do it while it is hot, so get used to enduring the heat.

To know whether you are doing it right, remember that a profiterole is a cream puff. The puff should be just filled with air. It shouldnt have the consistency and texture of bread. So when you poke the bottom of the puff, you should realize that the middle is basically empty.

f) Set aside to cool

Part ii : The Cream
a) Pour everything into a mixing bowl and whip until it has the consistency of cool whip.

If you are lazy, you can just whip the double cream until it is soft instead of using milk and icing sugar. It won't taste as good, but on the bright side it is easier and healthier - NO DIABEETUS YO

b) Fill in a piping bag (I used an icing bottle and a funnel so imagine my pain) and pipe into each profiterole by using that hole you made in its bum. Gonna make more dirty jokes but too lazy to think.
c) Leave the profiteroles bottom side up for the cream to set.

Part B : THE TOWER OF SAU.. Profiteroles. (But hey, tower of god, babel, druaga, saviors etc would work too)
a) Pour the castor sugar in a pan with the water and spread everything evenly.

Don't stir the mixture please. During caramelization you should not lay one finger on the mixture. Just let it boil and caramelize.

b) Boil until the mixture bubbles and turns brown. (Yes this is the caramelization process)
c) Remove from heat.
d) Now, prepare your profiteroles. Dip the bottoms of each profiterole and build them on each other to form a tower.

Croquembouche - the tower of profiteroles should be hollow in the middle. If you are new or is lazy, then you can just make one in which the middle of the tower is also profiteroles. A little less traditional but hey, it is nice to be lazy.

e) After the tower is done, with the remaining caramel/toffee - use two forks. Dip one fork into the caramel, press one fork on the other for a few seconds and separate to form a string of toffee. Weave it around the tower to form a web.
f) Repeat the toffee weave several times.
g) Weave several more times around the freaking tower.
h) FREAKING WEAVE IT BABY
i) Serve

During this process, it is important to construct the tower fast - or else the toffee will cool down and harden. Of course you can leave it be under a small fire, but you risk burning your delicate fingers when the mixture is bubbling. I burnt mine several times doing this even after removing the mixture from the fire.