ProfiterolesBakers Royale

Yup, I took the classic profiterole and destroyed it with some crazy. Snickers craziness. I turned a classic dessert into a three layer affair with some peanut butter mousse, sliced Snickers and drizzles of chocolate and caramel. I’m sure someone out there is probably pretty appalled that I am even classifying this as a profiterole dessert. But if you can think of a better name-leave a comment.

So while I started out with the intent of making a classic profiterole, you know pate choux filled with ice cream and then drizzled with chocolate maybe some crushed nuts, but then I figured you guys might be tired of ice cream recipes. From there my mind went to a pastry cream center, but I kinda already did that here (from way back). Then it occured to me to go completely sideways with this and make it like a mini Snickers cake. Continue reading Snickers Profiteroles

Croquembouche Cupcakes ~ Cream filled profiteroles mounted into the shape of a pyramid, known as Piece Montée, which literally means “mounted piece” or more widely known as a Croquembouche.

CROQUEMBOUCHE BakersRoyale Croquembouche Cupcakes — Croquembouche Cupcake

This was my first challenge for the Daring Bakers and my first time making a Croquembouche. I decided to side step the traditional form for a miniaturize cupcake version.

Okay, so how hard is it to make this? It’s not, but for some reason I really struggled with it.

Yesterday was like a kitchen explosion of baking gone bad. At one point I slammed my coffee to re-calibrate my brain, but to no avail. This was of course after ruining the second run of the cream patisserie. Word to all: Don’t take pictures (unless someone else can do it for you) at a pivotal part of the recipe, i.e. the whisking of the eggs into hot liquids, lest you want curdled crap!

Finally after getting the cream to the right consistency, I screwed up the pate choux twice as well. Somehow my baking hands and brain was set on “I’ll take two of everything” mode.

After all that, I was thankful to sustain only one burn on my finger, albeit it is the size of Florida from the spun sugar portion. Continue reading Croquembouche Cupcakes