This is a timely post, as next week the contestants on the Great British Bake Off will be challenged with making a croquembouche. Admittedly profiteroles are not quite a croque, but if you can make a good choux bun and creme patisserie you are halfway there.
Along with Sarah, Katie and a non blogging friend I was actually filmed making a croquembouche earlier this year for Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard, but sadly our episode ended up on the cutting room floor, due to a “misunderstanding” between the production company and Channel4.
Personally I suspect that our baking skills were beyond the scope of the programme, as we not only managed to successfully make choux buns, creme patisserie and stuck it all together, we also found the time to decorate our croquembouche with macarons and sugar paste flowers as well as the obligatory spun sugar! However that is the subject for another post, but if you are curious here is the croquembouche. It is not perfect, but it was only the second time we had made choux or creme patisserie.
Not bad for a first attempt at a Croquembouche
Consequently, I shall be howling with rage at the Bake Off next week, when they once again make out that baking is so very very difficult. I shall, yet again, point out that it is a matter of practise. Great bakers are made not born. Not that I can take the Bake Off seriously anymore having read Sarah’s review of Mary Berry’s lemon drizzle cake mix.
The practice point is made by the lovely Holly on the GBBO this year with her macaron recipe where she says that she had to make about 1000 of them before she could rely on them working every time. I reckon that is at least 15, if not 20 batches. How many people in the country have actually baked 15 batches of anything? I am not knocking her skill, but of course she is good at them by now!
At this point I feel the need for a little Roy Castle of Record Breaker fame. 1980’s yes, but it did make a good point to an entire generation of children.
Tolberone have a new recipe tab on their facebook page, and asked me to come up with a recipe for them.
Tried this recipe?If you try this recipe please tag #FussFreeFlavours on Instagram or Twitter. It is amazing for me when for me when you make one of my recipes and I really do love to see them. You can also share it on my Facebook page. Please pin this recipe to Pinterest too! Thanks for reading Fuss Free Flavours!Toblerone Choux Buns
Make this up to 3 days in advanceServings: 6 peopleIngredients
Toblerone Creme Patisserie
- 250 ml milk
- 2 tbs cornflour
- 100 g sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 egg yolks
- 30 g butter
- 100 g Toblerone (I used a milk chocolate bar)
- 1 tbs honey
Choux Pastry
- 175 ml water
- 85 g butter
- 150 g plain flour
- 1 pinch salt
- 4 eggs
Instructions
Toblerone Creme Patisserie
Put the cornflour into a bowl, add a couple of tablespoons of milk and mix to a paste. Add the remainder of the milk, sugar and Toblerone to the saucepan and gently heat until the chocolate is all melted. Add the egg and yolks to the cornflour paste and whisk well. Pour over about 1/3 of the hot Tolberone mixture, whisking well. Pour the hot Toblerone egg mixture into the saucepan, stirring well all the time (I use my electric handheld whisk in the saucepan - if you do this please be VERY careful with the powercord). Bring the mixture back to a gentle simmer, whisking all the time and scraping the sides and bottom of the pan with a spatula (the creme will thicken here first). The mixture will thicken quite quickly. Pour into a bowl, add the honey and butter and whisk again until quite smooth. Cover the surface of the creme with cling film and once cool put into the fridge.Choux Pastry
Put the water and butter into a pan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the flour & salt. Return to the heat and cook for minute or so stirring all the time until the mixture has dried slightly. Remove from the heat and add each egg, one by one stirring well between each addition. Heat the oven to 425F / 220C / GM 7 and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Put the batter into a piping bag (I use disposable ones) and just snip the end off, otherwise use a 1cm tip. Pipe walnut sized dollops of the batter. Smooth the peaks on the top of them with your finger. Cook for 10 minutes until puffed and golden. Turn the oven down to 350F / 180C / GM5 and bake for another 20 mins to dry out. When I turn the oven down I usually turn the puffs over and spike them with a skewer to let the steam out. Keep an close eye on them. If you have a fan oven I find that it is better to turn the fan off if you can. Once the buns are cool fill a piping bag with a small tip with the creme patisserie and fill each bun. Brush melted chocolate over each bun. You can melt chocolate in the microwave on the lowest power if you keep a careful eye on it. I found the melted Toblerone quite stiff so added a drop of olive oil to make it spread more easily.• Please note that the nutrition information provided below is approximate and meant as a guideline only.• Unless stated otherwise cup conversions have been made with an online tool. For accuracy please check with your favoured conversion tool. We recommend buying inexpensive digital kitchen scales.Nutrition FactsToblerone Choux BunsAmount Per ServingCalories 498 Calories from Fat 243% Daily Value*Fat 27g42%Saturated Fat 15g94%Cholesterol 246mg82%Sodium 228mg10%Potassium 138mg4%Carbohydrates 53g18%Fiber 1g4%Sugar 31g34%Protein 10g20%Vitamin A 830IU17%Calcium 83mg8%Iron 2mg11%* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.Delicious Recipes Emailed To You!Get easy, tasty recipes for FREE when you subscribe! Click to Subscribe Now!!
Many thanks to Toblerone for the bag of ingredients.
For more Toblerone inspiration, and a far simpler recipe then try my three ingredient no churn Toblerone Ice Cream
Helen
Oh these look yummy!
I know what you mean about the GBBO, I am a novice baker and am now terrified of macarons and flaky pastry! Although everyone assures me they are not that bad! LOL
Katie
Loving the toblerone recipe Helen – yum! I think the GBBO is fantastic TV but ridiculous in it’s approach to baking – turning people into shivering wrecks – it’s meant to be FUN!!!!!
We totally rocked Baking Mad…
Michelle @ Greedy Gourmet
Looks fab. Won’t mind eatingone as long as I don’t have to bake it. I’m afraid I’m one of the shivering wrecks when it comes to baking.
Ren Behan
Oh what a funny post. They should have given you your own TV series not relagated you to the cutting room floor. Lovely choux buns, I’ve never made them myself. In the spirit of the GBBO I shall give them a go! Yummy.
Helen
Well my own TV series would be the only sensible thing to do. Along wtih the lovely Katie @ Feeding Boys and Sarah Maison Cupcake, too of course.
Sarah, Maison Cupcake
Toblerone Choux Buns! OMG, can you send me a courier delivery please?
Well, considering we heard that other episodes featured people burning a tray of biscuits on Baking Mad, probably we were way out of their league?!!
Helen
Exactly my thoughts. OK our buns did not puff perfectly. But were were pretty good I thought. The production team seemed to think so.
Courier on its way!
thelittleloaf
The first time I made macarons they turned out absolutely perfect. Maybe I was just lucky, but I reckon there’s a lot of scaremongering going on out there :-) And as for that Mary Berry cake mix – appalling. Still love the show though, it’s such good TV!
On another note, your recipe looks gorgeous – love the idea of using toblerone. Yum.
Helen
Exactly. Scaremongering sums it up. The lovely Holly on the GBBO has a macaron recipe on her blog and says she had to make at least 1000 before getting them consistently right. 1000 macarons has to be around 15 to 20 batches. This reminds me of Roy Castle and his trumpet singing Dedication on Record Breakers, which I need to add to the post.
Teresa
There is scaremongering definitely! I’m terrified of making macarons because of the Bake-Off, although from what I can see, they’re relatively easy to make, they just take a fairly long time.
I would love to try out Choux Buns, as I’m quite addicted to the shop-bought ones :D By making my own, I can alter the fat content a little bit. Thank you very much for posting your recipe.
Choclette
Well it’s a damn shame your croquembouche didn’t make it on to the programme – it looks fab and we’d have all enjoyed watching. But thank you muchly for bringing these gorgeous profiteroles to the party, I don’t think they’ll be lasting long ;-)
Vixie
Wow, these look amazing! Cannot wait to see what they come up with on