Day 27 of the course was divided in two parts, one part making a croquembouche and the other part was for sugar eggs.
For the croquembouche we had to make enough profiteroles/cream puffs to cover a cone. The recipe we used for it was:
- 250 gr butter
- 500 gr water
- 250 gr flour
- 500 gr egg (or as much as needed to get the right dough consistency)
oven temperature 225C till they are done puffing up then lower it to 175C so the inside can "dry"
This recipe is enough for two "little" croquembouches. I started with cubing the butter and bring it to a boil with the water. Once the water boils and the butter has melted I took the pan of the stove and added all the flour and mixed it as well as I could. Then I put the pan back on the stove so I could "cook" the dough. Once there is a shiny layer on the dough, I put it in my stand mixer and mixed it with my flat beater till it cooled down enough for me to add the eggs one by one. Depending on how much water evaporates when the water cooks and the dough cools down, you might need more or less eggs. The last two times I made profiteroles I used about 8 eggs. The dough is ready when the mixture is slowly gliding off the flat beater.
Then I scooped the dough in a piping bag and piped some on baking paper. Then they went into the oven and when I thought they were done puffing up I lowered the temperature. After a while I took one out of the oven, broke it in two and inspected the inside to see if it was cooked enough. When they were ready I let them cool first before I punched a hole on the bottom. So while the profiteroles were cooling down I had time to whisk up some whipped cream with a bit of sugar and vanilla.
I also had time to make some sugar eggs. Sugar eggs are basically made with sugar and water.
For a colored egg one had to color the water before adding it to the sugar. When the sugar has the same consistency as wet sand I pressed it in a mold and left it to dry. Then for a hollow egg, I scooped some of the sugar out. Of course the plan was to make pretty decorations with royal icing, but unfortunately I didn't had enough time because my eggs weren't ready.
I also pressed some sugar in a chocolate mold. Since they were small they dried out pretty good so they kept their shape when I took them home.
So back to the croquembouche; I've got the profiteroles ready, punched a hole in the bottom and filled them with whipped cream. Then they went into the fridge to cool.
In the meantime I melted some dark chocolate and start tempering it. This chocolate will be used to clue the profiteroles together.
I also covered a cone loosely with some plastic wrap so when I'm done it is easier to get the cone and the plastic wrap out.
I dipped the cold profiteroles in the chocolate and stared to arrange them on the cone. I tried to fit them as well as possible, but since they all have different shapes, I had to fill in the gaps with profiterole parts. When the whole cone is covered the whole thing went into the freezer. Before we went home we slowly took the cone and as much plastic as we could out.
The croquembouche was placed on a pretty plate and then wrapped in clear foil to make it more festive. It was a hell of a job to break the croquembouche into bite size pieces so the next lesson I only made one croquembouche and a whole bunch of cream puffs.
Day 28 was a free style day. All that we did in the weeks before were repeated and everyone got to choose what they wanted to do.
Of course I went and made another croquembouche but since we had a hard time eating it I decided to make one and box the other cream puffs.
This time I used milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate and decorated it with some white chocolate.
My family loved them and when they requested cream puffs I can now just whisk them up. No more failures here. When I made cream puffs at home I needed about 1,5 liter whipping cream for this recipe. If I mix it with some crème pâtissière then the ratio is 50% whipped cream and 50% crème pâtissière.
The second day in class we talked about choux pastry. Choux pastry is a light half cooked dough made with water, butter, flour and eggs. There is no rising agent so basically what makes it rise is a combination of high temperature and steam.
We used choix pastry for making profiteroles and eclairs. I have made profiteroles before and sometimes they rise and sometimes they don't. And I never knew what went wrong. For something that only has 4 ingredients it's still a bit tricky to make. Too many eggs and the profiteroles will rise too much and crack. If the dough is not cooked enough, it doesn't produce enough gluten to hold everything together. If it's baked in the oven on high temperature too long the outside will burn while the inside is still not cooked.
The trick of getting it right is to carefully weigh all the ingredients, cook the dough till it's shiny, add just enough eggs to make a batter and turn the oven lower after the dough has puffed till it can't puff no more. Even then it's not easy to get it right.
In class we had to work in pairs to make the dough. Everything went well till we added the last egg. That last egg did it. It made the batter thin and because we couldn't fix it we baked it anyway. With a pastry bag we piped some piles for profiteroles and some for eclairs. The profiteroles and eclairs came out huge. Huge and flat, because I turned the oven temperature lower too early. So we learned 2 things that day. Too much egg is bad and not letting the dough rise enough is bad.
In the afternoon we learned how to make crème patisserie. Crème patisserie is just a fancy word for pastry creme and it's basically a thick custard. After cooling it we mixed it together with some whipped cream so we could stuff our profiteroles and eclairs.
We didn't want to dip our profiteroles and eclairs in chocolate because that would make them too sweet. Instead we just decorated it with a bit of chocolate.
Our profiteroles and eclairs might not look pretty, but they tasted pretty good.
At home I tried to make the dough again, this time using half the recipe we use in class:
- 250 ml water
- 125 gr butter
- 125 gr flour
- 4 small eggs (or as much as needed)
oven temperature 225C Celsius till they don't puff up anymore then 175C
I cut the butter in small cubes and started cooking them in the water. After the butter melted I took the pan of the stove and stirred in all the flour. Then the pan went on the stove again and I cooked the dough till I could see a small layer of fat (the melted butter) on it. The pan went off the stove again and I mixed in one egg at the time. First the dough is lumpy and doesn't want to form a batter but by the time I got to the forth egg the dough had the right consistency.
I put all the dough in a pastry bag and start pipping the piles for profiteroles and eclairs on baking paper. I tried to make them all the same size so they could cook the same.
I baked them till they were nice an puffed and took one out to check the inside. Since the inside wasn't cooked I lower the temperature to 175C Celsius and let them cook for a bit longer. I don't mentioned any time because every oven is different and it also depend on the size of the profiteroles and eclairs. Bottom line is: I start with 225C and after they are done rising (and if they aren't cooked in the inside) I turn the temperature down to 175C so the inside can cook.
I didn't had enough ingredients for the crème patisserie so I made a different stuffing. While the profiteroles and eclairs were cooling down I whipped up 200ml whipping cream. Instead of putting sugar in the whipping cream I added 1,5 tablespoons of homemade lemon curd. I figured that they were going to be sweet enough with a chocolate topping anyway.
I used a scissor to make a little hole in the bottom of the profiteroles and I used a pastry bag to fill them. I did the same with the eclairs. After that I dipped them in some melted chocolate.
These look like proper profiteroles.
Piping skills on the eclair can be better, so there is definitely room for improvement.
