The ultimate French celebration dessert: small choux buns filled with vanilla cream and stacked into a tower. It is held together by a caramel in which a dash of Vinberg Verjus balances the sweetness with a subtle acidity. The recipe comes from Loana Bernsteiner of Cakeaway. Allow some time, as the cream needs a night in the fridge.

Croquembouche: a tower of choux buns with caramel threads and sugar stars

Croquembouche with verjus caramel

Loana Bernsteiner, Cakeaway

A tower of choux buns filled with vanilla cream, held together with a verjus caramel.

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Prep Time 30

Cook Time 1 30

Total Time 2

Course Dessert, Pastry

Cuisine French

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

For the choux pastry

220 ml milk
45 g butter
1 pinch salt
1 pinch sugar
140 g flour
4 eggs

For the vanilla cream

250 ml whipping cream
2 packets vanilla sugar
½ vanilla pod

For the caramel

250 g sugar
65 ml whipping cream
65 ml Vinberg Verjus fruity mild

Instructions

Vanilla cream (the day before)

Bring the cream to the boil with the vanilla sugar and the scraped vanilla pod, remove from the heat and let it infuse for about [wprm-timer minutes=”10″]10 minutes[/wprm-timer]. Remove the pod and chill the cream overnight.

Choux pastry

Bring the milk, butter, salt and sugar to the boil. Add the flour all at once and keep stirring over the heat until the dough forms a ball and comes away from the bottom of the pan.
Let the dough cool slightly, then beat in the eggs one at a time.
Preheat the oven to 200 °C. Pipe small mounds of dough onto a baking tray and bake for about [wprm-timer minutes=”20″]20 minutes[/wprm-timer] until golden. Let cool.

Caramel

Melt the sugar in a pan until light golden. Stir in the cream and verjus. Careful, the caramel will spit.

Assembly

Whip the chilled cream until stiff and fill the choux buns. Stack them into a tower using the caramel as glue and drizzle the rest of the caramel over the top.