How To Make a Croquembouche

Jump to Recipe

A croquembouche, pilled high and encased in strands of hard caramel, is a glorious sight to behold! Guess what, you can make this one-of-a-kind dessert in your own kitchen. That’s right! It, of course, is not the easiest of desserts to create, but completely doable.

I’ve been making this recipe, for New Year’s Eve, for over 10 years, and have had my fair share of successes and failures along the way. In this recipe, I’ll share some great tips and tricks to help you be successful the first time!

If you are looking to take on a more advanced project in your baking journey, a glorious croquembouche is the perfect project for you!

What is a Croquembouche?

This dessert consists of filled profiteroles piled high into a towering cone shape. The profiteroles hold onto the cone, and each other, with a sticky caramel that dries hard. To really elevate your dessert, be sure to spin little strands of the caramel around your tower to make a sugar cage!

This is the classic way to make a croquembouche. However, now bakers make croquembouche with many different small items like macaron, truffles, doughnuts, and other small pastries. You can make one featuring different colours and decorated in a variety of fun and creative ways!

Croquembouche is a word made up for this dessert. It is from the words croque en bouche. This translated from French to English is crunches in the mouth. The crunch comes from the hard crystalized caramel sugar that is holding the croquembouche together, and is encasing the tower.

Where is croquembouche from?

Like a lot of extravagant and artistic food, the croquembouche is from France. Most agree that the inventor of the croquembouche is Antoine Careme, the French pastry chef, in the late 1700’s.

Now the croquembouche is a special occasion dessert. It is typically served at weddings, baptisms, Christmas and first communions. However, in my family, we always serve it on New Year’s Eve!

Can I make a croquembouche in advance?

You can make some elements of a croquembouche in advance. A classic croquembouche is assembled and served fresh . This is because of the texture of the profiteroles, the perishable nature of pastry cream, and the stability of the caramel sugar.

However, since a croquembouche is a more intricate dessert, making some of these items in advance can really relieve the pressure, if you are tying to prepare this for a gathering or event.

Store premade pastry cream in the refrigerator, 1-2 days in advance. Make profiteroles in advance and store at room temperature, unfilled, in an airtight container. If you are making a cone you can assemble that in advance, as well.

Most everything else should be made, and assembled, within two hours.

Storage

It is best to enjoy the croquembouche fresh. Cover any left overs and store in the refrigerator.

Profiteroles can be stored in an airtight container, in the freezer, but the texture of the pastry cream will be altered.

The texture of the caramel will become sticky and start to melt, when stored in the refrigerator or freezer, so it is best to disassemble before storage.

A croquembouche should be eaten within two hours, for proper food handling and safety. This is due to the pastry cream filling. If you are making your croquembouche with something other than pastry cream, the amount of time you can leave it out, without refrigeration, will depend on that.

How to assemble a classic croquembouche

The best way to make this dessert into a well formed, and sturdy, cone shape is to have a premade cone underneath.

You can make one yourself or you can buy a premade cone form at most craft or cake supply stores. If your cone is made of a material like Styrofoam or cardboard, cover the entire form with a piece of parchment paper first. Then, glue the filled pastries to the cone.

The glue for the croquembouche is made of a caramel that is liquid when heated but dries hard.

Dip each profiterole in the “glue”, being very careful as this will burn your skin. A good option is to use kitchen tongs. Stick the pastries to the cone, and to each other, as you continue to move upward towards the peak.

Once the entire cone is covered, take a spoon and swirl the hot caramel sauce around the outside, encasing the entire thing in a sugar cage!

How to eat a croquembouche

This is the fun part! To eat a croquembouche, brake through the sugar cage with the back of a spoon. Grab a profiterole and break it off of the tower. Now you have a perfectly filled profiterole with a bit of crunchy, sugary caramel glaze!

The soft, velvety, profiterole pairs perfectly with the delicate crunch of the caramel, making this a dessert that guests will remember!

Ingredients

For a medium croquembouche you will need:

1 recipe for profiteroles

1 recipe for pastry cream or filling of choice

A cone form, prebought or homemade

1 recipe for caramel glue (below)

Assembly

1. Make and fill the profiteroles.
2. Prepare either a store-bought or homemade cone, by covering it and securing parchment paper. Cut or tuck in the bottom to form a smooth base. Place this on your serving tray.
3. Prepare the recipe for caramel glue.
4. Carefully dip each filled profiterole into the caramel, just enough to glue it to the form.
5. Working in a spiral, from the bottom up, continue to dip and glue the profiteroles onto the form.
6. I find that halfway through the process, my glue becomes cool and needs to rewarm to become liquid again. To avoid this, after gluing the base of the tower, return the pot to the stove, on low heat. This will not over cook your caramel and will keep it just warm enough to ensure the glue stays liquid, during the entire process. Turn it off when you are almost at the top of the cone. This will allow you to dip and glue, but the caramel will start to cool and become slightly thicker, in preparation for making the caramel cage around the croquembouche.
7. Continue to glue your tower together, until you cannot see the cone form.
8. Bring the pot of caramel close to the tower. With a spoon, spiral little strands of the caramel around the croquembouche. Since the strands are so thin, they should become hard quite quickly allowing them to make the cage.
9. Present as a beautiful dessert centrepiece!

Ingredients for Caramel Glue

½ cup of water, plus more for brushing the sides of the pot.

3 cups white sugar

3 Tablespoons corn syrup (I used golden corn syrup)

Method

1. In a medium sauce pot over over med-high heat, add all of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Don’t stir!
2. Meanwhile, prepare a large bowl, or tray, that will fit the pot. Place ice and water in the bowl to make an ice bath. Use this to immediately stop the caramel from cooking.
3. As the caramel is cooking, brush the insides of the pot with 1-2 Tablespoons of water. You will not stir the caramel as it is cooking.
4. Once you see the caramel turn a light caramel or light-amber colour. Remove it from the heat and gently place the bottom of the pot into the ice water bath to stop the caramel from darkening further.
5. Remove from the ice bath.
6. Carefully, dip the pastries into the caramel, just enough to glue them onto the cone. Be very carful not to get any onto your skin, as it will burn and stick to your skin. Use kitchen tongs, if necessary.
7. Return the pot of caramel to low heat, once it starts to cool. This will keep the caramel liquid for the entire process.
8. Once finished, the leftover caramel will solidify to the bottom of the pot. To clean this, boil the hard caramel with water until it is liquid and thinned with the water.

Looking for more party recipes to serve with your croquembouche? These are some of my favourites! How to make Baked Brie How to make a Cheese Fondue How to make puff pastry appetizers