The Australian Women’s Weekly

Serving size: Serves 10 or more
Cooking time: More than 2 hours
Course: Dessert
Favourite flavours: Cakes/baking

Show off your MasterChef skills by making this Traditional Croquembouche

INGREDIENTS

choux puffs
750ml (3 cups) water
225g butter
450g (3 cups) plain flour
12 eggs

filling
600ml thickened cream
80g (½ cup) icing sugar
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
2 teaspoons grated orange rind

caramel
500ml (2 cups) water
880g (4 cups) sugar

METHOD

Step 1
Cut butter into pieces about the same size. Combine 1 cup of the water and 75g of the butter in pan, bring to boil, stirring until butter melts. Add 1 cup of the flour all at once, stir vigorously with wooden spoon until mixture leave side of pan and forms a smooth ball; remove form heat.

Cool slightly; add 4 of the beaten eggs, a little at a time, beating well after each addition. This can be done on an electric mixer or food processor. Mixture should be smooth an glossy.

Drop slightly rounded teaspoons of mixture, about 5cm apart, onto lightly greased oven trays. Bake in hot oven 10 minutes, Reduce heat to moderate, bake further 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown and crisp.

Remove from oven, make small slits in side of Puffs to allow steam to escape; return to moderate oven for a few minutes to dry out.

Repeat process twice with remaining Choux Puff ingredients. When preparing the last quantity of the puffs, spoon ½ teaspoonfuls of mixture onto trays to give small puffs. These are used to filling small gaps when layering the puffs.

Step 2
Filling: Whip cream and sifted icing sugar until stiff peaks form, fold in Grand Marnier and orange rind. Puff with finger.

Place cream into piping bag fitted with a small plain tube, pipe a little cream into each puff.

Step 3
Caramel: Place half the sugar and hald the water in frying pan, stir over heat withour boiling until sugar is dossolved. bring to boil, boil rapidly without stirring until mixture turns golden brown. Place Croquembouche cone on plate, dip bottom of each puff into caramel; arrange around cone in layers, using the largest puffs first.

Step 4
Decorate Croquembouche with crystallised violets (buy from a gourmet delicatessen) by dipping backs of violets in caramel. Make another quantity of caramel using the remaining ingredients. Drizzle Croquembouche with cooled caramel. Let stand at room temperature, no longer than 6 hours.