French Croquembouche: Profiterole Tower Cake

So enchantingly beautiful! All guests will be delighted! Profiterole cake Croquembouche is a French dessert made from custard cakes laid out in the shape of a Christmas tree. At one time it was a traditional wedding treat, but today it has lost some of its popularity.
cook time: 5h
Ivy Ramsay
French Croquembouche: Profiterole Tower Cake

Nutrition Facts (per serving)

226
Calories
11g
Fat
27g
Carbs
5g
Protein

Ingredients (12 portions)

For custard cakes:

Milk 250 g
Water 250 ml
Butter 200 g
Eggs 8 pc
Wheat flour 300 g
Salt 0.25 tsp

For the custard:

Milk 700 ml
Butter 70 g
Eggs 3 pc
Wheat flour 70 g
Sugar 160 g
Vanilla sugar 1 tsp

For caramel:

Water 80 ml
Sugar 400 g

Recipe instructions

Step 1

Step 1
How to make a cake from Croquembouche profiteroles? First, letʼs make the base for the cake. On a sheet of thick paper, draw a quarter circle with a radius of 30 cm (the size can be changed). Cut out the drawn segment and connect it in the shape of a cone; to do this, simply connect the straight sides together. First wrap the resulting cone in several layers of foil, and then cover it tightly with cling film. Thatʼs it, our form is ready.

Step 2

Step 2
How to make custard tarts for a cake? Prepare the necessary ingredients. To speed up the cooking process, the choux pastries can be made the night before. In this case, transfer freshly baked and completely cooled profiteroles into a bag or container with a lid and leave at room temperature until the next day.

Step 3

Step 3
Cut the butter into small cubes and place it in a 1.5-2 liter saucepan.

Step 4

Step 4
Add milk, water and a pinch of salt.

Step 5

Step 5
Place the saucepan on the fire and bring the contents to a boil. The butter should be completely melted.

Step 6

Step 6
Be sure to sift the flour, this is important, because if there are lumps in the flour, it will be difficult to break them up during brewing.

Step 7

Step 7
And without removing the saucepan from the heat, add all the flour at once. Remember that you may need less or more flour, you can read more about this in the article, the link to it is at the end of the recipe.

Step 8

Step 8
Actively stirring the mass with a wooden spoon or spatula, brew the dough for 1-2 minutes over low heat. During this time, the dough should gather into a single mass and turn into a smooth lump, and a thin flour coating should form at the bottom of the pan.

Step 9

Step 9
Place the cooked portion of the dough into a bowl and let it cool. To make the dough cool faster, I simply stirred it with a spoon for 4-5 minutes.

Step 10

Step 10
While the dough is cooling, crack the eggs into a bowl and beat lightly with a fork. If you have fairly large eggs, you may need 7 eggs. Wash the eggs with baking soda first, as they may contain harmful bacteria.

Step 11

Step 11
When the custard has cooled slightly, start adding eggs in small portions. Mix the dough very thoroughly. Once one portion of eggs is fully incorporated, you can add the next portion.

Step 12

Step 12
You should end up with a very soft, shiny dough.

Step 13

Step 13
Fill a pastry bag with a round tip with the finished dough. If you don’t have a bag, then take a regular thick bag and cut off a corner of it, or simply spoon out the dough using two teaspoons. Cover a baking tray with baking paper and use a bag to pipe the dough into small mounds at a distance of 3-4 cm from each other. Try to place the dough in small portions, literally the size of a quail egg.

Step 14

Step 14
You can smooth the tails on the dough with your finger dipped in water.

Step 15

Step 15
Bake the profiteroles in a preheated oven for first 20 minutes at 200°C, then reduce the temperature to 160°C and bake them for another 15-20 minutes until beautifully golden brown. By the way, it is very important: do not open the oven door for the first 20 minutes, otherwise the profiteroles may fall off! Remove the finished profiteroles from the oven and leave to cool. The times are approximate, use your oven as a guide. Read more in the article, the link is at the end of the recipe.

Step 16

Step 16
How to make custard? Prepare the necessary ingredients. You can also prepare the custard the night before; it will cool well in the refrigerator overnight.

Step 17

Step 17
Pour the milk into a saucepan, put it on the fire and heat well, almost until it boils.

Step 18

Step 18
Meanwhile, combine eggs, sugar and vanilla in a bowl.

Step 19

Step 19
Beat lightly with a whisk. You don’t have to try to completely dissolve the sugar; it will dissolve when you add hot milk.

Step 20

Step 20
Add flour to the egg mixture (it also needs to be sifted) and mix thoroughly with a whisk.

Step 21

Step 21
Pour hot milk into the resulting mixture in a thin stream, while constantly stirring with a whisk.

Step 22

Step 22
Pour the resulting mass back into the saucepan and place on low heat.

Step 23

Step 23
With constant stirring, brew the mixture until a thick, smooth cream is obtained. To do this, simply bring the cream to a boil — you will notice how bubbles begin to appear on its surface and that’s it, you can remove the cream from the heat. And also, be sure to constantly stir the cream, do not leave it for a minute, otherwise it may burn and, in addition, lumps may form in it.

Step 24

Step 24
Pour the finished cream into a bowl and, stirring from time to time, leave it to cool for 10-15 minutes. By the way, if suddenly lumps still form in your cream, then simply strain it through a sieve.

Step 25

Step 25
Stir the butter into the cooled cream.

Step 26

Step 26
Cover the finished cream with film so that it fits tightly to the surface of the cream and cool it well. Once you have your profiteroles, cream and cone mold ready, you can start assembling the cake.

Step 27

Step 27
How to make caramel? Prepare the necessary ingredients. Caramel is not difficult to prepare, but when working with it you need to be very, very careful and attentive, as you can get seriously burned. Alternatively, instead of caramel, you can use melted and slightly cooled chocolate to assemble the cake. The choice of chocolate (white, black or milk) is completely up to your taste.

Step 28

Step 28
Pour sugar into the center of the saucepan and add water to it. If sugar crystals get on the walls of the saucepan, be sure to wash them off with a slightly damp brush.

Step 29

Step 29
Place the saucepan on the fire and melt the sugar over high heat until it becomes caramel. Be careful, stir the mixture only until it boils. Also, watch the color of the caramel and don’t burn it.

Step 30

Step 30
Dip the caps of 30 profiteroles into hot, freshly cooked caramel and place them caps on a sheet of parchment, greased with a thin layer of vegetable oil, leave the profiteroles in this form for 5 minutes so that the caramel completely hardens. This is not necessary, but this way the cake will look more elegant. Try to make the caramel layer not very thick so that it is convenient to eat the profiteroles.

Step 31

Step 31
This is such a beautiful caramel crust that you get on the cakes.

Step 32

Step 32
Fill a pastry bag with a narrow nozzle with cream and fill it with 60-70 small profiteroles (30 pieces with caramel crust and 30 pieces without it). I indicate the number of profiteroles based on the calculation that for one pyramid 30 cm high you will need about 60-70 small profiteroles.

Step 33

Step 33
Build a pyramid. To do this, if necessary, cook a fresh portion of caramel and carefully dip the filled profiteroles on the side (on the side where they will come into contact with other cakes) and cover the entire cone with them, alternating cakes with and without a caramel crust.

Step 34

Step 34
Cut off the tip of the cone, this will make it easier to lay out the last cake. This is such a cute Christmas tree.

Step 35

Step 35
Traditionally, Croquembouche is decorated with fresh or sweet flowers. I used sweet (sugar) roses. You can glue sweet flowers using caramel or melted chocolate.

Step 36

Step 36
At the very end, decorate the cake with caramel threads. Just keep in mind that this should be done no more than 1-2 hours before serving, since the caramel is very finicky and these threads begin to melt over time. To make caramel threads, cook a new portion of caramel and let it cool a little, dip a fork or whisk into it and wait until the caramel begins to flow down into a thin thread and start wrapping the cake with these threads.

Step 37

Step 37
French dessert — Croquembouche cake made from profiteroles is ready!

Step 38

Step 38
When serving, the cake is not cut, but simply disassembled into cakes.

Step 39

Step 39
Bon appetit!

Additional rubrics

Related recipes