Croquembouche or two days to suffer

A Croquembouche is a French dessert that often served at weddings. It is a high cone of profiteroles bound with caramel, and usually decorated with threads of caramel, sugared almonds, chocolate, flowers, or ribbons.

The name comes from the French words 'Croque en bouche' meaning 'crunch in the mouth'.


This week we were so lucky to make this "lovely" cake :-) !
We made it two days, I mean two practical sessions.
I have to say that this is very complicate composition, but for experienced chef it should take a hour to make such a cake.
As our chef says: "You just should find a monkey to buy it from you! :-) "



Now I'll explain how we made it!
That cone of profiteroles is placed on nougat base that made of almonds mixed with hot caramel and then rolled to desirable shape while it's still hot, because when it become cold it like a rock.

This is a base

A little triangles are made also of nougat and then rolled. Since we are not so experienced chefs, we had to warm this almond mix again and again in order to roll these shapes and cut.

This little thing will be placed on the top of the cake.

When I finished to pipe on it ( white glaze) It just slept out of my hands and cracked, since it's very fragile :-)
.

.

.

.
.
.
.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Hundreds of profiteroles were baked , filled with pastry cream and glazed with caramel and some of them with nibbed sugar (kind of sugar used usually for decoration, it doesn't melt) and build around the cone as you can see below:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

And here the moment of ultimate truth came, I was supposed to take the profiteroles construction off from the cone mould, and all of them fall apart :-(. Chef said that it happens sometimes :-)

All those pictures are from the chef's demo, because my cake didn't survive!

This cake (when it peacefully delivered to the wedding :-) ) should be served by parts of profiteroles ( 5-6 per person) accompanied with ice cream or sauce.

If some of you will need a wedding cake, you know where to order it, but the price will be very high :-) !!!

Intermediate Patisserie

It's about a month since I have started the Intermediate Patisserie term.
And shame on me, I haven't published any sweet picture!

So, here it comes! (After a couple of words of course :-) )

This term is a little bit complicate then the previous one, we are already supposed to know some basics.

And so far I can say that I like Cuisine more!

I'm not a person who likes cakes a lot, specially not cream or mousse cakes.

If I make a dessert at home it's usually will be some fruit pie or tart, or it's also could be very rich chocolate cake.

But most of all I like the smell of baking dough - danish pastry, brioche and so.

I'm as my Dad, like all the bakery and good breads. I think that's the only thing that I can't resist to. When I was pregnant with my daughter, my husband was bringing boxes of danish pastries, and I was able to eat a lot! The final result is a very very sweet girl!

So, I'm an opposite to my mum and husband - they like all things about chocolate. And as higher the percent of chocolate - is better! May be it's the basis of their good relationship - the chocolate desire :-).

Another thing, I hate doing the cake decoration staff - writing on cakes, piping, all of these beauty things.

But I'm doing all my best as you'll see on the pictures, because I have one and a half term till the chef hat!!!

Chestnut mousse encased in sponge













Sticky toffee pudding













Apple strudel





























Danish pastries - my favourite!

Dobos chocolate sliceRoulade with raspberry cream













Pudding souffle













Crepe Soufflees Suzette

Fraisier













Opera